


For the World That Can Be

by stellahibernis



Category: Captain America (Movies), Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Comic Book Science, Gen, M/M, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Wonder Woman (2017), making new friends in unexpected places, many other characters in minor roles, past Diana/Steve Trevor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-05 02:49:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 28,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11568756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellahibernis/pseuds/stellahibernis
Summary: Diana is on a mission to prevent the war from taking a dark turn, when she finds an unconscious man in the middle of a forest in southern France. It feels like cosmic irony when it turns out his name is Steve.Steve wakes up, and nothing is as he remembers, and yet it’s familiar, because it’s late fall in 1943. He’s right in the middle of the war again, except this is nothiswar.Bucky comes out of cryostasis in Wakanda, and immediately knows something has gone horribly wrong.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The whole story is written, there are six chapters in total, and the remaining ones are currently being edited, proofread and made presentable in general. It has already been picked apart for plot related things, so there is no need for rewrites or additional scenes that would delay posting. I’m aiming to update every two or three days, so the whole thing should be posted by late next week.

“The Spear of Destiny.” Etta’s voice is perfectly dry, so much so that it comes out more as a statement than a question, even when her disbelief is clear on her face.

“Yes,” Diana says, already packing her things, considering the fastest way to get to the continent without getting mixed up with war machinations. She knows there are plenty of people in the British command that would help her, but this mission is not something she wants them in on.

“As in, the one they poked Jesus with? Do you actually believe that?”

“I believe that enough people over time have believed it to be true, and because of it there is power in it now. That’s enough.” 

Diana well knows that magical artifacts are not always what they seem, but the message she has received is concerning enough. If the spear makes it to the hands of Hitler, it likely will be the decisive turn in the war, and it can’t happen.

“Well, you’ll need some help. I’m going to make some calls,” Etta decides, and hurries out of the room.

They’ve become close, during the last couple of decades, ever since Diana decided she wasn’t going back to Themyscira. Etta is still cheerful and sharp tongued as ever, her curls impeccable, but Diana can’t help but see her aging. It is strange, here in London. Everyone ages but her, and she hasn’t yet gotten used to it. Back on her island everyone stayed the same, decade after decade, but here they’re all moving forward.

It’s a hardship Diana never knew to expect. Sometimes she wonders which is harder, to witness a swift death of a loved one, or this slow descent in time for everyone while she stays the same. Most days she can’t decide.

Diana packs her things swiftly, making notes on additional things she needs. It will not be easy, once they get on mainland, since she doesn’t want anyone’s attention on them. They need to rely on their own knowledge and resources, but she’s sure they can manage.

It’s been hard over the last decade, to watch the world again descend into a war. This time she knows for sure it’s not the work of Ares, it’s just that people are capable of horrible things.

And good things, she reminds herself. Always good things. It was a difficult lesson to learn, it cost her so much, but she is all the better for it. It doesn’t mean she knows what to do to make this better. This time she’s taken part in the war effort from the beginning, mostly in London, but it’s been difficult to find a direction, some concrete action for her to do. Last time she had a definite goal, but now it’s too much of a tangle for her to really get a hold of it. She feels disappointed in herself, thinks she should be doing more, and there are days when it’s hard to keep believing they will make it through.

Yet believe she must, and she does, by keeping the memory of those now gone near to her heart, remembering everything she learned from them. At least it’ll be easier now that she has a task to complete, something only she can do, and something she knows without a doubt she can’t let happen.

Etta pokes her head through the door, now dressed in practical travel suit. “They’re all coming.”

“Good.”

There are exactly four people she trusts with this, and it’s brave of them all to come, to take up another mission that carries so much risk. Part of her thinks she shouldn’t ask, thinks they’ve done their duty and then some, but she knows Etta, Sameer, Charlie and Chief would all be mad at her if she tried to do this without them.

She picks up her sword, a new one since the fake God Killer was destroyed, her shield, and her lasso. She’s all ready to go.

 

* * *

 

Steve is tired. 

It’s been months since the Accords, since Siberia, since Wakanda. It’s been long months during which he and his team have in secret gone after all the threats the Avengers aren’t officially allowed to pursue. On one hand it helps, it keeps him focused, because he has to think about what they’re doing, has to consider strategies and contingencies, to make sure they make it through. To make sure his team is as safe as they can be while going against some of the most dangerous people on the planet, people that have no regard for innocent lives. It helps to get him think about other things besides Bucky, still in stasis in Wakanda, no remedy in sight for the triggers in his head.

It’s been months, and Steve can’t remember the last time he slept the night through, can’t remember the last time he felt relaxed and happy. It’s as if the amount of HYDRA cells they find keeps multiplying daily, clearly they’re feeling confident in the current political atmosphere, where it appears those responsible of making decisions are more concerned about their own power and not the suffering of innocents. Steve and his team are doing the best they can to discourage HYDRA and their ilk, but they are handicapped by the needed secrecy, by the necessity of avoiding capture themselves.

They have been seen occasionally by public, since more and more often HYDRA has taken to setting up their bases in areas where there are a lot of people, wanting to blend in. It means there are a lot of eyes around, which makes it impossible to operate completely undetected, even when they are careful. There are reports on the Internet, riddled with guesses and inaccuracies, hope and doubt. Steve has to admit to himself he does like the name given to them by the people; Secret Avengers. He imagines General Ross must hate it, which is just a bonus.

It’s been many long months, and they’re doing the best they can, trying to take precautions, but there is no end in sight. They’ve managed everything well enough so far, but Steve has always known that at some point their luck will run out. Seems like the day has come.

They’d gone after a hybrid cell of HYDRA and AIM, and for once the base is in the middle of nowhere, on a small Pacific island. They’re fine so far, they’ve contained the situation, none of the team is seriously hurt, but they’re stranded, since their transport took a hit. They’ve contacted Wakanda, and there is an extraction incoming, but they’re not the only ones. The Avengers are on the way too, and there’s nowhere to run. 

Steve looks around him, at Sam, Wanda, and Nat, and he wonders if they’re all going to be in prison by the end of the day. He doesn’t know, there’s the tiniest hope that maybe it won’t be like that, even though there hasn’t yet been contact between them and the rest of their former team. But there have been times when things have happened just a little too conveniently for them, a few times when the Avengers’ response hasn’t been quite as fast as Steve thinks it should have been.

Steve wonders if there will be a fight, because he doesn’t want that, doesn’t want to stand against his former team again. He will, though, if need be. He’ll fight them before seeing Wanda and Sam again behind bars, before seeing the carefree attitude Natasha has cultivated in herself in the recent years doused.

If the Wakandan team makes it first, there’s no trouble, they can just disappear again, but it’s not a hope that lasts long. The Avengers’ quinjet is familiar, and Steve wonders who is in on the ride, besides Tony and Vision that are flying next to the jet.

It’s like time stops, for just a second, and Steve doubts any of them is even breathing as they look at each other. Then Steve catches movement in the corner of his eye, a man in black uniform, blue light crackling all around some kind of a big gun, aimed straight at him.

Steve doesn’t think, he gives Natasha a push, enough to send her out of danger. He sees Tony point his palm toward the man, Sam raising his guns, Natasha too as she comes out of the roll. The man is dead already, even though he’s still breathing. The air turns red around Steve, Wanda’s magic gathering to protect him, but it’s too late, the blue light hits him on the side.

The last thought Steve has before the darkness takes him is that he rather misses his shield.


	2. Chapter 2

Diana is making her way back toward the base, her scouting mission a success. She knows where they need to go, and even though it’s some distance away in former Austrian territory, she’s all the more filled with purpose. It’s high time for her to act, to make sure this war isn’t going to get any worse than it already is.

It’s something people would call the sixth sense, but for her it’s just the way she sometimes knows things, probably due to her heritage. She can feel a sadness in the air all around her, even clearer now that she’s on the continent. It is an ugly war, dark and desperate, spreading all over the world. It feels too big, even more so than the one that ended just a couple of decades ago, the one that was called the great war, the war to end all the wars. That moniker certainly hadn’t come true. She wonders how many of these kinds of wars are waiting along her path, how many times the world will be thrown into a chaos like this.

There are no easy answers this time, no God of War to kill. But then, she supposes there were no easy answers in the previous war either. The world is so much more complex than the stories she grew up with let her know, and that’s why she stays, that’s why she tries to contribute all the good she can. It’s true that there are horrors she couldn’t have imagined when she lived on the island, and that people aren’t always good by nature. It’s more complicated than that, it’s about choice and free will, and so it’s all the more beautiful when so many people choose to be selfless and caring.

It’s not so different from her, she guesses, after all she has made a choice as well.

She’s making a good time through the woods, she’s sure she’ll be back with her friends before nightfall. She’s pulling her cloak a bit tighter around her against the cool air, when there is a flash of blue light somewhere among the trees in front of her. She crouches to take cover, but nothing moves, there’s no sound, no fire. Only a metallic taste in the air that’s already fading. She knows it wasn’t any kind of a weapon she knows of, and it worries her, but for now everything seems peaceful again. She pulls out her sword, adjusts the cloak so it’s easier to drop in case she needs to fight, and goes to investigate.

She follows the metallic tang to a small clearing, and has to blink for a second, because what she sees is nothing like she expected. It’s a man, lying crumpled on the ground. Unmoving but alive, as Diana can tell as soon as she kneels next to him. There are no immediately visible injuries, despite his unconscious state. His dark blue clothes, clearly armored, but unlike anything she’s ever seen, are scuffed and dirty, and there’s a discoloration at his side, as if something has hit him there, burned. There’s dirt streaked in the man’s blond hair too, as if he’s been in battle before this. There just aren’t any battles nearby.

Diana considers all she sees; it’s clear this man is from somewhere else, probably a warrior of some kind, even though he has no weapons she can identify. There is a bit of ball chain peeking out from his collar, and Diana pulls it to reveal dog tags, which is convenient.

The tags add to the mystery though. The man is born on July 4th 1918, which would be reasonable enough, but everything else makes less sense. The tags say he is a captain in the US army, which doesn’t seem likely, because his combat suit has no resemblance to US military uniform, or any uniform Diana has ever seen.

His name is Steven. Of course it is.

 

* * *

 

Consciousness returns suddenly, and Steve has grabbed the wrist of the hand on him before he even sees who it is. His fingers curl around metal as he blinks to clear his head. He’s holding onto some kind of a silver cuff around the wrist of a woman whose gaze is steady on him, curious and not at all afraid. Steve lets go, since she could have hurt him already if she was going to.

She has a mass of black curls and some kind of a tiara on her brow, and Steve half thinks he must be hallucinating, because she looks like someone straight from a storybook or a movie.

“Captain Rogers?” she asks, and even though a lot of people recognize him these days, she says it like his name bears no meaning to her. Instead she gestures at his tags that have fallen out of his collar. 

Steve tucks them back inside his suit. “Call me Steve, please.”

“Steve, right.” Her face does something complicated, Steve could swear it’s sadness, but in a second the calm is back. “I’m Diana of Themyscira. Are you on some kind of a special mission, since the bulk of the American armies are nowhere near here?”

“The American—?” Steve is all the more confused, and looking around him does nothing to clear things. Thing is, it’s familiar, in a way he never wanted to see again, because they’re in a foxhole, not old and rundown, but fairly recently constructed. “Where am I?”

“Southern France.”

“And what day is it, exactly?” Steve asks, already dreading the answer.

“October 1st,” she says, frowning.

Steve should maybe just go with it, because he knows he probably appears crazy, but he has to know. “And the year?”

“1943.”

Steve closes his eyes, squeezes them shut tight. All things considered, he’s not sure he prefers this to dying.

On October 1st 1943 he was on tour with USO, giving a show in Chicago, desperately wishing he’d be allowed to go on front, that he’d be allowed to do something more than stand on stage. On that same day, there was the Battle of Azzano, where HYDRA revealed themselves. On that day, on this day, Bucky was taken as a prisoner, an act with so many consequences for both them and the world.

There are hands framing his face, deft and strong, and as he opens his eyes Diana is peering at him. 

“Are you okay, did you hit your head? There are no wounds I can see, but it doesn’t always tell the whole truth, and you don’t know the year.”

“I know what year it’s supposed to be,” Steve says, dejected, and Diana pauses to look at him again.

“There was a flash of blue light in the woods, metallic taste in the air, and when I went to investigate I found you. Your tags say you’re an American soldier, but your uniform is nothing like theirs. Actually, I haven’t seen fabric like that anywhere, and I know armor.” She pauses to look at Steve, and there’s still no distrust in her eyes. “You’re not from here aren’t you? Not from anywhere near.”

“No. No I’m not,” Steve admits, and then says, curious, “You believe me.”

She smiles, and it strikes at Steve how wise her eyes look, older than her apparent years. “I’ve seen stranger things. Come, you can’t stay here. My team is some distance away, but we can make it today. There’s food, and we can decide then what you want to do.”

Steve hasn’t got any other options really but to trust her, but he finds it’s not difficult at all.

 

* * *

 

Diana sets a brisk pace for the journey toward the camp where her team is waiting, and soon enough it becomes apparent that Steve has more endurance than he should. After coming to live away from Themyscira, Diana has gotten used to reducing her speed and strength when dealing with people, but now Steve shows no signs of pushing, and as Diana gradually ups the pace he keeps up fine, no signs of exhaustion.

“Where I’m coming from, you’re what we call enhanced,” Steve says after an hour, and Diana recognizes it both as a sign of trust and an invitation to a conversation.

“So are you.”

“Yeah. A result of an experiment with a serum meant to create super soldiers. At least I volunteered for it, unlike some.”

There’s a hint of bitterness in Steve’s voice, and Diana files it away but doesn’t pursue for now.

“I was always like this,” she says. “You don’t have any weapons, do you?”

“Not with me here, but there are people who would argue that I am a weapon.”

Diana glances at Steve over her shoulder, and he gives her a rueful shrug. Diana senses a conflict in him, she thinks he has chosen to fight for what he believes, whatever that might be, but he’s also tired.

“Well, if we run into a German patrol, it would be better if you had more than just your fists. I’d give you something of mine, but I’m not sure you’re trained to use swords or shields.”

Steve lets out a breath of laughter. “Actually, for several years up until some months ago my primary weapon was a round vibranium shield. It’s not exactly common where I’m coming from, but it suited me.”

“Up until a few months ago?”

“Yeah. You see, the shield I had, it was a symbol as well as a weapon, and it had gotten heavier than I liked, so I gave it up.”

Diana knows about symbols, knows what it can mean when they turn out to not be what one expected. She doesn’t know his history, but she knows him, in the instinctual way that people sometimes do, without need for a lot of actual facts. That’s what makes her pause and offer her shield to Steve.

“You’re welcome to use mine to fight the Nazis.”

“It would be my pleasure, Ma’am,” he says, and from him the honorific isn’t dismissive the way she’s heard some other men use it, it’s sincere.

They continue on their way, and after another ten minutes Diana remembers something Steve said. “What’s vibranium? You said you had a vibranium shield?”

“It’s a metal that can absorb kinetic energy, stronger and lighter than steel. It’s mostly found in Wakanda.”

“There’s no such place as Wakanda,” Diana says.

“And where I’m from there’s no such place as Themyscira.”

“Well, for most people, it doesn’t exist here either.” Diana pauses to listen, and Steve is right with her when she ducks.

It’s a platoon of Germans, and Diana nods at Steve as she lets her cloak down. There’ll be one platoon less of Nazis soon enough.

It’s a short lived fight, Diana and Steve taking everyone out efficiently. She sees from the corner of her eye that he’s indeed stronger than a regular human being, and trained in some forms of combat that she doesn’t recognize, although there are some familiar aspects too. The way he uses the shield isn’t like the Amazons do, and Diana is fairly sure he has made it up as he’s gone along. It’s efficient though, and she makes a mental note to get back to it, to ask more of how he came to use such a weapon.

 

* * *

 

Seeing Diana fight is a revelation, even when Steve gets the distinct impression that since she’s on some sort of a reconnaissance mission, and there are less than thirty Germans, she is holding back. There is strength in her that reminds Steve of Thor more than anyone, but also grace and obvious discipline that brings Natasha to his mind. But it’s more than that, her style is unlike any other Steve has seen, maybe unlike anything anyone else could be, and Steve has to force himself to concentrate on doing his part.

The shield Diana lent him is different in size and material compared to his, so Steve has to adjust, but he makes it work well enough, and soon enough they’re done with the German platoon. After the fight Steve gives the shield back to Diana, as there are plenty of weapons that the Germans had that he knows how to use.

They continue to wherever Diana’s camp is, and Steve finds himself feeling the kind of easy companionship he’s had a few times before, and he knows all the more that they will get along well.

“You said you volunteered for the serum to make you like you are now?” Diana says, raising Steve from contemplation. “Why did you do that?”

“There was a war,” Steve says, and decides to come clean, to voice his guess on what happened to him. “This war, actually. Although I think it wasn’t exactly the same, our histories seem to be somewhat different, but it was this war.”

“So you’re from a different Earth,” Diana says, like she’s confirming her guess as well. “And from the future in a way, I guess?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of a long story. But there was war, and I wanted to enlist, except they wouldn’t take me, because I was a foot shorter than I’m now, ninety-five pounds and had a bunch of health problems.”

“You wanted to do your part.”

“Yeah, but it was also less noble than that,” Steve says, voicing something most people tend to overlook and that he usually doesn’t talk about. “I wanted to know I was good for something, and felt like what I could have done in New York wouldn’t have been enough, so I tried enlisting. And my best friend was going and I couldn’t handle the idea of him on the front when I was safe at home. Even though realistically, had they taken me, I would have died in no time. 

“Anyway, I happened upon Dr. Erskine, who created the serum, and he saw something in me, and decided to give me a chance. He was one of the few people who believed in me, and it ended up working out. He was killed right after the procedure.”

Diana nods, understanding for the pain in her eyes. “So you ended up doing your part in the war.”

“I hope so. I mean, my team and I, we did achieve things that helped the Allied to win, but it’s always more complicated. There have been other attempts at the serum, encouraged by the apparent success of me, and the results have varied, consequences mostly not so great. Sometimes I don’t know where the balance lies.”

Diana is quiet, thoughtful, and then says, “It’s not your responsibility though, everything other people choose to do. All you can do is live your own life.”

“Yeah.” Steve finds himself feeling a bit lighter. He’s been telling similar things to himself for a long time now, but it’s more effective to hear it from someone else.

“It was the previous war, the one they call the Great War that made me leave Themyscira and come to help people. Did that one happen on your world?”

“It did. My father died on the front of that one. I never knew him.”

“Our people have been hidden from others for a long time, even now Themyscira is hidden in the mists, but when I learned about the war I knew I had to come and do whatever I could. Staying in the safety when I can do something is not in my nature.”

Steve asks Diana to tell him about her home, and it sounds like the stories he used to read, wars among gods and men. It’s something that would have sounded unlikely to him before him enlisting and everything that happened after, but then the Norse myths are true to an extent in Steve’s world, so why wouldn’t the Greek myths be true here. Besides, Steve is good at reading people, and there’s nothing but truth he sees in Diana.

They don’t run into any more Germans, and come to the camp that Diana’s team has set up in a spacious dugout soon after sunset. Steve is introduced to Sameer, Charlie, and Chief. He already knows that Diana got to know them during the previous war, and Sameer and Charlie show their age, even if they’re clearly still in good shape, and Steve knows the value of trust and experience over youth. Chief is harder to quantify, there is an agelessness about him, similar that Steve senses in Diana, but he decides not to ask.

They take the news of his arrival from another world at their stride, saying they’ve all seen stranger things, which probably is fair. When Steve suggests he’ll help them, they understandably are a bit suspicious, despite the fact Diana has already let him come with her. She says there is a way for them all to believe he’s sincere, and the men nod, seemingly satisfied when she takes out the rope at her hip.

“This is the Lasso of Truth, you won’t be able to lie when touching it,” she explains.

Steve lets her wrap it around his wrist, it glows golden, and it feels like his insides are laid bare.

“I want to help you in your battle against the Nazis, and will lay down my life before I’ll betray you,” Steve says, the words feeling like they rise from inside him on their own. “I chose to fight the Nazis in my world, and will do so again, even when the last time cost me everything.”

Steve shakes the rope off, his breathing elevated, the remembered loss suddenly sharp again. The four around him look at him with understanding now, the doubt having been exchanged for trust.

Diana pulls out a stack of maps, all business. “I found where they’re holding it.” She takes out one depicting the southern part of Germany, the borders as Steve remembers them from before the war, showing Austria as part of Germany. Diana marks a spot on it. “There. It’s a weapons factory, as I understand.”

Steve has already felt all too strange living the same war again and yet not, but he hadn’t expected to be presented with such a clear parallel. “I know that place. My best friend was held prisoner there by HYDRA, I got him out.”

“Hydra? Like the beast?” Diana asks.

“They were the Nazi science division, or at least posing as it during the war in my world. They were inspired by the mythology, about two heads growing back in place of one.”

“We don’t have that,” Sameer says.

“Good. You really don’t want them,” Steve says. “And there are no guarantees that the place is the same as it was in my world, but it was a weapons factory.”

“Well, at least you’ll know the terrain, I’ll take all the help we can get,” Chief says.

“What are we looking for anyway?” Steve asks.

“The Spear of Destiny,” Diana tells him. “It’s a magical artifact that can give power to its bearer, and if it makes it to Hitler’s hands, he’ll most likely win the war, and that can’t happen.”

Steve heartily agrees with the sentiment.

“Did you have something like that?” Sameer asks.

“No,” Steve says. “Well, not exactly. We had a blue cube that HYDRA used to power their weapons and that could open gates to other edges of the universe.”

“Each to their own,” Charlie says.

The general ease of how they all take the situation helps Steve, helps him keep his calm in this entirely too unlikely scenario. There’s a part of him that is sure he’s asleep, but then he can still feel the itch at his side as his ribs are healing from the hit he got from the gun that somehow brought him here.

They radio to someone called Etta to have a boat ready for them, and decide to set out early next morning. It is good to be doing something, Steve thinks. He’s deliberately not thinking too deeply about his circumstance, he knows there isn’t much he can do about it, and he doesn’t quite yet want to face the implications.

 

* * *

 

Bucky wakes up warm in a bed, and for a moment he’s confused, because in his bones he knows it’s not supposed to be this way. The disorientation lasts only for a second, before he remembers that he chose to be put into cryostasis in Wakanda, and that he was told they had ways to make sure the thaw process would happen completely with him still unconscious.

He opens his eyes, and blinks at the ceiling for a moment. There’s no way of knowing how long he’s been under, days and years pass just the same. He turns his head toward the big window to his left, and immediately cold fear trickles down his spine.

Sam is standing by the window, staring out over the green jungle. His spine is stiff, his shoulders hunched and tired. It’s obvious from his posture that something is wrong, and just the fact that Sam is there at all tells Bucky enough.

“What happened to Steve?” Bucky asks, his voice hoarse but understandable. 

Sam pulls a chair to his bed and explains. His eyes are tired too, clearly he hasn’t slept in a while. Bucky watches a recording of what happened on a holoscreen Sam calls over the bed, and is startled to realize the images must have come from cameras on Iron Man, as he sees the metallic arm come to view. 

Bucky watches the man with the gun, sees Steve react and push Natasha to safety as the gun fires. The shooter goes down but where Steve stood is nothing, only the red light of Wanda’s magic dissipating. Bucky’s hand shakes, his teeth grind together at the sight, even though Sam has already told him that the energy signature has been analyzed and that they know Steve was transferred somewhere. Bucky repeats that information in his head trying to banish from his mind how similar it looked to the HYDRA weapons they saw during the war, the ones that could disintegrate someone with a direct hit. The blue light in the image is too much the same.

“Where is he?”

“We don’t know. They’ve looked into it, and apparently there was some kind of a dimensional gate opened, but to where, that’s a whole another matter,” Sam explains.

There are immediate scenarios that come to Bucky’s mind, none of them good. Wherever Steve was dropped may have been unsurvivable. He may have been killed or injured by the blast. Even if they don’t know for sure, Steve may already be gone. Bucky draws a deep breath, pushes the thoughts away. They won’t help anyone, least of all him.

“What can I do?” he asks, and Sam looks puzzled for a second, then resigned.

“Nothing for now. There are people who actually know about dimensional gates and such working on it. We woke you up because we thought you’d want to know.”

It takes a moment to connect, and then it’s something akin to shame that overwhelms Bucky. Of course they wanted to tell him, considering Steve is really the only friend he has. Bucky shakes his head, pushing away the knowledge of how deeply ingrained his training is, that his first and second thought are still along the lines of how he can be used, not the kind of consideration that people show to each other.

Soon Bucky feels strong enough to get up, and the doctors give him permission to do it, probably realizing he wouldn’t stay either way. He dresses into the outfit provided and meets Sam outside his room.

“I should warn you, everyone is here,” Sam says, and there’s whole another bit of unease in Bucky.

The recording had come from Iron Man’s camera feed, which should mean Stark is working with them on this. Considering where they left off in Siberia, Bucky isn’t at all confident on how it’ll go, but Sam doesn’t say anything else. Bucky is fairly sure he would if there was even a small chance of this all blowing up on their faces, so he squares his shoulders and follows after Sam to a large lab space.

The gun Bucky had seen on the video is set on a table in the middle of a group of people Bucky assumes are all some sort of scientists. There are a lot of screens around them displaying data, a loop of the video he’s already seen and many instruments he doesn’t recognize.

There is a seating area off to one side, as well as a kitchen space. The rest of the Avengers are lounging on the couches, all tense even when they’re clearly trying to relax. As they come in, Sam makes a beeline for the couches, and Bucky follows, but doesn’t sit down, just chooses a spot by a wall where he can see everyone. Stark glances at him as they come in but then looks back to the work, and it’s the only reaction there is to his presence.

Bucky recognizes most of the people in the room, even the ones he hasn’t met yet. At the seating area there are Wanda, Clint, Scott, Natasha, Sam, Vision, Rhodey and Thor. Natasha and Rhodey both have computers in front of them, clearly concentrating on work, but the rest of them seem more fidgety.

The man that Bucky recognizes as Bruce Banner makes his way from the lab area to the kitchen and gets a cup of tea before sitting down on the couch. Bucky is a bit surprised by the man’s presence, considering for all that he knows he’d disappeared after Sokovia.

“Taking a break, doc?” Clint asks, making space for him.

“They’re deep in the specifics of interdimensional travel, and seeing as how I’m a nuclear physicist and biochemist, it’s not exactly my area. So I’m taking a moment now to clear my head, get back to it when we work on the powersource.”

Bucky looks at the scientist group, and besides Stark, there is a tiny brown haired woman he recognizes as Jane Foster, which means the older man with her is most likely Erik Selvig. Then there is a man who clearly spends as much time on his facial hair as Stark does and shares Thor’s fondness for capes. A Wakandan woman with intricate braids is leading the discussion. There is something familiar about her, even though Bucky’s never seen her.

Bucky settles against the wall, adopting a relaxed standing pose. He knows it’ll be a long wait.

Ever since DC he’s been carefully avoiding thinking about the future, has tried to not think of where he might be going, what he should expect, and yet, knowing Steve may be gone forever feels like a betrayal by the world. He’s done his best to not expect anything, but truth is, he has; there has been one simple dream of a future. Now it feels all the more unattainable. 

He’s felt helpless countless of times, but never quite like this, the outcome has never mattered so much. Now, for all the skills he has, all he can do is to wait and hope, and he’s not sure how much capacity for the latter he has these days.


	3. Chapter 3

There is a rowboat waiting for them on the beach at the set time. The mists are thick, enveloping them and making the shore disappear as they row out, but soon enough there’s a glow of lights ahead of them. They come from a fishing boat, big enough to safely navigate the sea. They meet a woman called Etta there, and Steve is explained she’s handling all the logistics for the mission. It’s also obvious that she and Diana are very good friends.

A few hours into the journey they’re all cleaned up, Steve is in spare clothes that don’t really fit but are still more comfortable for the boat trip than his battle suit, meal in the belly and resting. It’s not that warm, but Steve is still up on the deck, sitting at the bow wrapped in a blanket. There’s nothing much to do for now besides wait, and it will probably be the state of the affairs for several days onward. At some point soon they’re going to need to discuss strategy, and Steve makes a mental note to ask Etta for paper and pencils to draw schematics of the base.

For now though, Steve sits there idle, letting the reality of his circumstance hit him. It’s been coming, building at the back of his head, and he knows it’s better to deal with it now rather than risk it overwhelming him later when he needs to stay focused. In the past his favorite method of dealing with things has been to push them away, to not let them hurt him, and because of it he’s sometimes been caught up by them at unfortunate times. He knows he still does it, knows he hasn’t really dealt with everything to do with Bucky for example, but he at least knows better these days. Now everything he’s facing is too big to just push away, and since he’s signed himself up on this mission, he needs to make sure he’ll be able to do it.

It’s obvious he’s on a different Earth from his own. Far as he knows from discussions on the road with Diana and the men, their histories are fairly similar up to the war, but obviously not identical. Even the war is same on many aspects, and not on others, and Steve wonders about how much he should tell them, if it would help or hinder them to know what happened on his Earth. Obviously some things have already come up, but Steve has avoided talking about the history of his Earth, the times that would still be future for them, as much as he’s been able.

Being on a different Earth means the likelihood of ever getting back to his own is slim. Maybe there is someone here that could help him, but finding someone like that, and then even finding his Earth, let alone getting him back through seems like an insurmountable task. He thinks his best shot is probably his own team, because they have the gun that sent him here in the first place. Of course, it depends on them finding out that he’s been sent away, instead of him just disintegrating. They might be mourning for his death already, no rescue planned.

Steve knows that the most likely outcome of all this is that he’ll live the rest of his life on this Earth, and if it is to be so, he’ll try to do his best for these people, following Diana’s lead. Still, it would take time for him to deal with the loss of his old life for the second time. Especially since now the loss is all the more thorough, because all he has is this world that’s much like his own and yet not at all. There’s no one he knows, no one who knows him. When he woke up in the future on his Earth, there had at least been some connections, he hadn’t lost everything at once. Peggy had still been there, had still known him, even though she had lived her life over the decades he’d been missing.

Back then he hadn’t dealt with it too well, but by now he has moved on, maybe not fully but he has fit himself into the future. He’s found a new life, new friends, and the idea of losing them is a sharp pain in his heart. There had also been potential, not of getting something back, because neither he nor Bucky is the same they were before the train, but Steve had seen that despite all they’ve been through, they still fit together in the way he hasn’t with anyone else ever. There had been the hope of them finding a way to be with each other again, despite the fact that for the time being Bucky was held in stasis. Now Steve can’t help but feeling it all slipping away again.

He wonders if Bucky knows he’s gone, if the others have woken him up, or if they’ve let him stay in sleep.

 

* * *

 

It’s the second day on the boat, and they’re making a fair time, even if there are a lot of mists and the wind isn’t too brisk. Diana is leaning to a railing, finding the calm in the waves. It’s hard to just wait while they’re making their way toward Italy, the inactivity gets to her now that she knows where her target is. There is the worry that the Germans will figure out what exactly it is that they have, and transport the Spear to Berlin, where it will be a lot more difficult to reach. Not that it’ll deter her, if it comes to that.

She glances at Steve who’s sitting at the bow of the boat, drawing schematics of the weapons factory as it was in his world, as well as the surrounding terrain. There are no guarantees that it’ll be similar, but it’s something to start with. There is a frown between his brows as he works, his pencil fast and sure. Diana suddenly wishes she’ll get to see him draw something just for the sake of it, just for the pleasure of drawing.

It is odd, she thinks, to have run into these two Steves, both coming from a new world according to her perspective. The first time she chose to leave her secure home, and make her home larger, the whole planet. Now, this second Steve has no obvious way of getting back to his home, and it has nothing to do with people trying to keep him. There just aren’t any open paths for him to take.

“Can I ask you something?” Diana says as she makes her way closer and sits down next to Steve. At his nod she continues, “How is it that you’re so calm about this? Being in different world, with no way home.”

Steve looks up to where the pale sun shines through the mist for a second. “Usually I deal with things by hitting stuff or just keeping it in, and there’s nothing for me to hit here,” he says with a wry slant to his mouth. “I told you earlier that this war cost me everything I had. You see, near the end of it I was in a plane filled with bombs heading straight for New York, and there was no way to steer it, but I could force it down, so I did.”

Diana presses her hands together to keep them from shaking, because it feels too big of a coincidence. “But you’re here, so you escaped.”

Steve shakes his head. “I didn’t. I’ve thought about it afterward, and I probably could have jumped after the plane was going down. I’ve later jumped at heights like that into water with no trouble. The cold might have gotten me, since it was in the Arctic, but I didn’t even try. Anyway, it went down, I lost consciousness on impact and woke up in New York, except it was sixty-seven years later. The impact hadn’t killed me, and the ice preserved me until I was found.”

Diana mulls the story over, pushing away the memory of another Steve and another plane for now. He also decides to not ask why exactly he hadn’t thought to escape. “So with you having been missing for that long, it must have meant most of the people you knew were gone. You said your best friend fought in the war?”

The frown on Steve’s brow deepens, the pain visible. “Bucky died some weeks before me, on a mission. Or we thought he did, anyway.” Steve blinks, clearly steering away from the thought and Diana decides to respect the avoidance, even though it’s obvious there’s more of a story there. It’s also probably the reason for him giving up on the plane. “The rest of my team from the war made it home, but they’d died before I woke up again. Peggy was still alive.” Steve glances at Diana. “I met her before I got the serum, and I fell in love with her during the war. She made it through, had a great career, she was part of founding the security organization that I worked for up until few years ago, and she also had a family of her own. She passed away last year, but I was always happy to have her in my life for the last few years.”

They both fall silent and Diana considers what he has told her, both with words and with omissions, with his silences. So he had been in love, and yet chose not to fight to keep it, but follow his friend to death. Only it hadn’t worked out for him, and he’d been thrown into another time instead. It’s obvious that love hadn’t been a simple matter for him, during his life before the plane. She wonders if it is now more so.

Diana thinks toward the future, one that she knows waits for her and that Steve has already lived. She’s not getting older, but her friends are year by year, and in time she will have to let them all go. She knows it won’t be easy, even if they get to live full lives and not have it cut short the way her Steve did.

“So I’ve lived through losing everything already once,” Steve says. “I’m not saying it’s easier now, because it isn’t.” He shakes his head. “Honestly, it’s probably harder this time, but maybe I am a bit better equipped to deal with it.”

Diana thinks of the decades he missed, of the history of the world and how much must have happened over that time. She wonders too, if her world will follow on a similar path as Steve’s, since they so far seem to have gone through a very similar history, despite the fact that the people obviously are different. 

“Does it get better, in the future?” she asks, and the fact that Steve doesn’t immediately reply tells her enough, and he seems to realize it too.

“Well, I’m sure you know, people are people even decades onward, not really different from how we are now. There are good things and there are still intolerable things happening in the future. The medicine is better, there are advances in the society, even though there’s pushback too, people holding so called old fashioned values better. Calling discrimination morality. Same as now.”

“It looks like I have a long battle ahead, but then I knew it.”

“Yeah, seems never ending. Sometimes it’s hard to go on, to find a meaning,” Steve agrees.

“I’ve found that whenever I lose my faith, there are others reminding me,” Diana says. “And you have too, I hope. You said you had a team, back where you come from. Do you think they will find a way to bring you back? If there was a way to send you here, maybe they can reverse it.”

Steve looks at her then, considering. “I’ve thought about it. Maybe they can, if they know I didn’t just disintegrate.”

“Then I guess all you can do is have faith in them.”

“Yeah. You see, we’ve had hard times recently, disagreements, but ultimately, I do believe in them. In all of them,” Steve says.

 

* * *

 

The waiting is excruciating, even though Bucky was conditioned to it during his Winter Soldier training. Back then he didn’t personally care what was at the other end of waiting, so keeping still and resting was actually a fairly good deal. Now though, now he cares, maybe more than he ever has, and so it’s difficult to just wait, knowing there’s nothing he can do to contribute for now.

The people working on the problem wander in and out of the conversation, sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes they nearly yell at each other, and it’s difficult to gauge whether they’re making any progress or if they’re just juggling all the possibilities. He’s learned that the woman with braids is T’Challa’s sister Shuri, which explains the familiarity. Apparently she’s responsible for most of the Wakandan tech, and Bucky is fairly amused to note that Stark is annoyed that he sometimes has trouble keeping up with her. It probably doesn’t happen that often to him.

The man with cape is someone named Doctor Strange. Apparently he is something of an expert in traveling between dimensions. Strange’s friend called Wong also turned up for a moment, he’s apparently doing research in some secret library. Bucky can’t help but be wary of them, considering his experience with secret societies isn’t that great. Thor was the one who brought Strange in, though, and after speaking to him Bucky tentatively does trust Thor, and hence feels a bit easier about Strange.

Bucky of course understands in broad strokes what the problem is, even though he’s not one to get into details. They need to locate Steve, they need to breach the barrier to wherever he is, and bring him back. Right now they seem to be focusing on the gate. He follows the discussion from the sidelines, as do everyone else that has no other job to do. Even T’Challa comes in and out, flanked by the Dora Milaje, taking care of his duties to Wakanda while getting progress reports. Bucky gets the feeling that Steve and T’Challa have struck a friendship over the months he’s been in ice.

“What about the Tesseract?” Stark says, and everyone in the room perks up.

Bucky hasn’t actually seen the cosmic cube, he only heard of it while he was with HYDRA. It was one of the things that was never a target for him but it was to be secured if a chance arose. He knows it’s now in Asgard, and it doesn’t surprise him that Thor makes his way toward the center of discussion, Natasha trailing after him.

“What of the Tesseract?” Thor asks.

“It is a dimensional gate, as we all know,” Stark says. “Maybe we could use it to breach the barrier, considering the gun’s power source is somehow related to it.”

Thor’s brow furrows. “I’ll do what I can to help bring Steve back, but this is not an easy matter. First of all my father wouldn’t just let me take it, and there would be consequences in bringing an Infinity Stone to Earth, especially since there already is one here.” Thor nods at Vision.

“Steve would hate the idea of bringing the cube back here just to save him,” Natasha adds, her arms crossed, face tight. Clearly she’s battling with her instincts, both wanting to respect Steve’s wishes and just wanting to bring him back. Bucky feels much the same.

Shuri stares at the tabletop for a second, contemplating the problem. “It may not be necessary, and I’d rather we didn’t invite dangers we don’t understand any more than we already are. I believe we can replicate the power imprint from the gun, so that we can keep it up steady instead of just for a short blast, and continue from there.”

Jane suddenly brightens up. “We have something that might be a good starting point at least. During the Convergence we created a method to replicate and control the dimensional gates. Maybe we can enhance and direct our method.”

There is new excitement in the group of scientists as they delve into details, and Bucky can’t help but feel a bit more hopeful, considering it now seems there is a concrete direction to their work, rather than just theories. Thor smiles as he returns to his seat, and Natasha briefly locks her eyes with Bucky, nodding.

The hours pass, and Bucky lets his mind drift, listening to the discussion. When he gets hungry he piles a plate with food and while doing so he notices Wanda is outside sitting on the terrace, curled up into herself, staring into distance.

Bucky knows she is one of the Avengers that Steve feels closest to, along with Sam and Natasha. As he’d been planning to spring them out of the prison while Bucky was being prepped for ice, Steve had been most worried about her treatment. Bucky was already in ice when Steve went to get them, so he doesn’t know what exactly she went through. Still, he finds himself making his way to her, even though the two of them don’t really know each other.

Bucky sits next to Wanda, and what comes out of her mouth doesn’t surprise him the least bit.

“I should have saved him.”

Bucky knows from the video that she tried, that she used her magic to try and protect Steve, but in the end it hadn’t been enough in time. Looking at her, the miserable slope of her shoulders, Bucky thinks he maybe should put his arm around her for comfort, but it doesn’t feel natural at all, not anymore. He has vague recollection of being fairly tactile before the war, but he thinks it wasn’t the same after Steve found him in the HYDRA factory, and now it’s definitely been burned out of him.

Still, there is something he can do that he thinks might help her, even if it means dipping into the memories he usually avoids.

“You know that Steve blames himself for not catching me when I fell from the train?”

Wanda glances at him, clearly not quite seeing where he’s aiming at. “I know.”

“Right. Well, I don’t, not at all. And I get it, maybe he could have prevented it, if things had gone a bit differently, but they didn’t. And I fell, but it’s not his fault. If we start faulting his choices, then we also need to fault mine because I was there on board of the train because I chose to be. And Steve has done everything he has because he chose to.” Bucky pauses, looks at her again. “Thing is, kid, the way the world works is that sometimes bad things happen and we can’t prevent them, even if it feels like we maybe should have. It doesn’t mean it’s our fault. I don’t blame Steve for me falling, and I know for sure he doesn’t blame you for what happened to him. We’ll get him back, and he’ll tell you himself, okay?”

She nods, even though Bucky knows she doesn’t manage to believe it even half way.

“And I know it’s hard to accept,” Bucky says. “Personal experience. I know that about you and Steve, that you’re not to blame, but it’s a lot harder to accept it for myself. Probably makes us all hypocrites, in that we’ll tell other people to not feel guilty and yet do ourselves.”

She smiles then, and while she probably doesn’t find it any easier to forgive herself, at least she understands. Bucky feels just a bit closer to her. They sit there together, until there’s a loud exclamation from inside, and they go to see what it’s all about.

 

* * *

 

Days on the boat pass, and Steve observes the people he’s fallen in with, the same as he knows they observe him. It is a relief to know they at least trust him, Diana’s Lasso at least took care of that, but it doesn’t mean everything is simple moving forward. They are still a team, and he is an outsider.

Very soon after meeting them all Steve came to a conclusion that no army commander would ever assemble this team, no army commander would believe them to be efficient, but he also knows they’d be wrong. They haven’t talked about what happened during the previous war, but Steve has gathered enough that he knows they went on some mission back then as well, and it bolted them all together, formed ties that can never be broken. It’s valuable beyond belief when going after something important, Steve knows it all too well, and hence he has a good faith in them, and in Diana.

Steve also can’t help but note that they all fall into patterns around an empty space, and it takes no genius to guess they lost someone during the previous war. In the end, Diana is the one to tell him of Steve Trevor, and of the sacrifice he made.

“He came into my life on a plane, and he left on another.”

“You love him,” Steve says. Diana hasn’t told him in so many words, but it is fairly obvious from the way she speaks of him. It glows from her really, there’s a steadiness that feels almost blinding to Steve. He’s glad that even with the loss, love has still been simple, easy, for her.

“I do, still, even when it’s been so many years. I don’t think it’ll ever go away.”

Steve nods. “Not that we would want it to, right?” He thinks of Peggy, how she’ll always have a space in his heart. He thinks of Bucky and the long years Steve thought he was gone, that he in a way was, and how memories of him were both painful and a relief against the emptiness. 

“It’s difficult every November,” she says. “That’s the month of his death, and then it feels like it lingers. But every other time, I’ve found it’s not so heavy. He never leaves me, and it’s the good things that remain on top of my memories, not the pain. It still exists, but it’s not so sharp these days.”

Steve just nods, because he can’t really say anything to it. He recognizes the gift she has given him, both the personal story, and the reassurance that the pain will lessen, that it will never fully go away but that there will be a time when it’s not the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of those he’s lost. Steve knows it really, from how he now remembers his mother, but it’s easy to forget with the newer, more acute pain. It’s been only half a year since Peggy passed away, and that pain is still sharp, still an open wound. And before that, he never really got to the part where it was easy to remember Bucky. The day on the overpass came before that, and Steve had to change the pain of loss for something more complicated, no less hurtful.

Now, he doesn’t yet know if he should mourn for the loss of everyone he knew, or if he should wait and hope. He doesn’t know at what point in time the switch should happen.

***

Diana apparently tells the others Steve now knows about his namesake, and the atmosphere relaxes a bit, now that they don’t feel the need to step around the issue. 

“It’s a bit ironic, don’t you think?” Sameer asks once. “That here you are missing your own team among a group of people that miss their Steve. Someone has a weird sense of cosmic humor.”

“Probably. Or it’s just a big fat coincidence,” Steve says.

Charlie glances at him. “Not a believer in higher power?”

Steve is quiet for a moment. “My mother was Catholic, and raised me accordingly. She had faith, and passed it to me as best she could. Now though, I don’t know what to believe in, after all I’ve seen. It is weird though, so maybe we should call it cosmic irony.”

“Amen,” Charlie says, mock serious, and Steve finds himself laughing with Sameer.

“The way I see it,” Steve tells them, “I can’t be the one you lost, and you won’t replace my team, but it doesn’t mean we can’t work and move forward together.”

***

The journey toward Italy is long and boring, and Steve has to stop himself counting days, thinking back to where he was at any given moment on the same day on his Earth. It’s no use, it’s still in the past, and this is a whole new war for him, for all that it’s familiar too.

They spend the sea journey poring over maps, finding the best way toward the weapons factory, and as irony would have it, this time Steve is going to walk to Austria. Part of the way anyway, they’ll probably find vehicles as they go. It’s another prick at his heart, to think of Peggy and Howard who risked themselves because they shared his belief that he could make difference.

Steve draws schematics of the factory and terrain, putting his photographic memory to good use, and he’s delighted to discover the depth of knowledge Diana possesses. She clearly has a strategic mind naturally, but she’s also been educated on the matters of war. It’s good to have someone who speaks the same language, who understands war and armies. Steve hasn’t had too much of that recently, Thor mostly, but he’s spent much of his time off-Earth or wherever Jane has set her research any given time. The rest of the Avengers have their minds trained in other ways, Nat and Clint, while being able to assess a situation, see it more from the angle of a spy and not a battle commander. With Diana it’s easy, to plan and to coordinate, and they soon have plans for the factory infiltration, as well as contingency plans in case the Nazis have moved the Spear.

They’re ready as they ever will be, and Steve wants to get off the ship, because even though they’ll have a long way to go after they make a landfall, it’ll feel more like moving forward than sitting on a boat does. There’ll be more for them to do, less time to wallow in his thoughts.

 

* * *

 

It’s their last night on the boat, they’re going to make a landfall early next morning unless there is some unforeseen complication. Diana has quietly been making rounds, talking to everyone, talking about their plans and what they have ahead of them. They all know it’ll take at the very least days, most likely weeks for them to get to the factory in Austria, and there is always the shadow of the worry at the back of her mind that they’re going to be too late.

She finds Steve outside, leaning on the railing. She’s noticed he sleeps less than humans normally do. It’s not quite the same as it is for her, that she can stay awake pretty much indefinitely if she chooses, even if she usually just keeps a normal daily rhythm. Steve seems to need about half the amount of sleep regular people do, so it’s not odd to find him up and out.

For all that there is the instinctual understanding that Diana has of Steve, it doesn’t mean he’s a completely open book for her. It’s not because he’s dishonest or deliberately hiding, but just that he doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone, so he keeps his pain in check. She knows well enough it’s not good, but from their discussions she has gathered that he knows too, just that right now he can’t allow it to himself to break down about it. She hopes he will get that chance, hopes he finds his way home. She also thinks he’ll need a guide from his own world for that to happen.

She leans on the railing next to him. It’s a quiet moment, and she likes them, likes the discussions they’ve had too. There are a lot of similarities between them, many same issues that haunt them, and it’s good to be able to talk about them in a way she often can’t.

“Do you ever regret it, choosing the life of battle?” she asks.

Steve is quiet at first, staring out into the darkness around them.

“No. I don’t regret it, even with all the pain it has brought me. There is a cost we must pay to fight for freedom, but I believe it’s worth it, even if I sometimes have to really remind myself of it.”

His smile is wry, and Diana knows what he means. It’s not always easy to remember, she too has had her crises of faith and determination, but she has kept on going.

“One of the things that keep me going is hoping that if I’m to pay the price, then there are people that won’t have to. Even though sometimes I don’t get to make the choice.” Diana again thinks back to that night, nearly a quarter of a century ago now. There are still days she spends going over every moment that happened, every step she took. Wondering if there was another path she could have taken that would mean her Steve would still be here, maybe now standing with them, looking across the waves.

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, and she again knows there’s a story here, one he hasn’t told her yet.

“I once asked my Steve what people did when there was no war, and he said he had no idea what it was like, to live in peace.”

Steve lets out a sigh. “Sometimes I feel like I’ve forgotten too. I woke up in the future, and they said the war was over, but it has never really felt that way. For a moment I thought there would be a respite, when I left behind my shield and the name it carried, but it didn’t last.” He sits down on the deck, leaning his back to the railing, and he looks tired suddenly, but not the kind that can be cured with a good night’s sleep.

“Why didn’t it?” Diana asks.

Steve tells her then, about his friend Bucky, how he seemingly died but didn’t, how he came back a different man, and of their struggles afterward.

“Every day since I found out I’ve thought I should have stopped it, should have caught him so this never would have happened. And yet, there are moments when I’m just happy that he’s here. Or, well, in my world, but alive. It feels wrong to feel happy, when his passage through time has been bought with so much suffering.”

Diana is quiet, thinking through what she’s just heard, the tale of unimaginable horror. She’s not at all sure she has words that can make it better, or even words that simply don’t make it worse. She’s never been one to stay quiet, though.

“I understand how you’d feel that, but then again, think of it like this, if he’d come back to himself in a world where no one was happy of his existence? Wouldn’t that be so much worse? I don’t believe loving someone is wrong.”

Steve looks at her then, a dozen emotions flicking over his face, and finally he lands on a little helpless laughter. “I guess, I never thought of it like that. It’s a tangle, most days I don’t know what to think.”

“But you do love him.”

Steve opens his mouth to speak, and then reconsiders what he’s about to say, shakes his head to himself. “It’s difficult for me to talk about it. You see, Bucky and me, we never have. Where we grew up, you could be like brothers, but there was always potential for more than that between us. I think we both knew, but we never wanted to take that step, because of the dangers.”

“Oh, right,” Diana reminds herself again about the realities of the world of men. “So it’s the same in your world as well. It’s hard to remember sometimes, coming from a place where there were only women. Obviously we don’t have restrictions like the society of men does.” She thinks ahead. “But what about the future where you lived? Is it still the same?”

“No. Thankfully, it’s gotten better. Not fully equal, and not everywhere, there are still countries where you can get a death penalty for loving someone of the same gender, but it’s better.”

“And you still haven’t talked about it?”

“No. There just hasn’t been time, we’ve really only been in each other’s company for some days since I found out he’s alive, and I don’t know. We’re both different people. And it might not matter, now that I’m here.”

Diana grabs Steve’s hand. “You mustn’t think that. You said you have faith in your team.”

“Yeah, I do. But it seems I need reminding, sometimes. Thank you.”

Diana nods, and settles back, more comfortable. “Sometimes I think ahead, and I know that I’m likely to see and experience even worse things than I have so far as I live on. And every time I find that I still don’t want to give up.”

“You’re giving yourself a test.”

“Yes. And if you were to give that to yourself right now, what do you choose?”

“Move forward,” Steve says, no hesitation.

“Good.”

 

* * *

 

At some point between DC and when his tentative peace shattered in Bucharest, Bucky had started to dream. It wasn’t the kind of dream that one gets while sleeping, he’d had plenty of those long before, mostly nightmares. It was the kind of dream that one has while awake, a wish for a future. Bucky thinks now that he’d been unable have such dreams before that, he hadn’t remembered how to be a human well enough.

There is a difference between being a human and remembering how to, he now knows, and it’s a valuable knowledge because with it comes the certainty that he was a human all along, it was just that HYDRA didn’t want him to remember it in the end.

The dream though, it had been simple, for all that it had felt unattainable most of the time. He had wanted a moment, just one moment, nothing more, to be with Steve and that it would be easy. That had been it, and really Bucky already has had that, even if it happened in a way he never would have expected. For a moment in that elevator going down into the HYDRA base in Siberia he’d looked at Steve, same as Steve had looked at him. There had been nothing between them, no barriers, they’d seen each other for what they were, what they had and hadn’t been, all the potential for what they could be, and Steve had nodded at him, had accepted it all. 

After everything in Wakanda, for all that Bucky had tried to not let them emerge, he’d gradually gained more dreams, more intricate, but the same as the first one in that he couldn’t quite let himself believe they’d ever become real. Now he knows the probability is even smaller. He chose to go into ice, and now he’s woken up to find Steve gone.

The only thing that makes it bearable is the possibility, however uncertain, of getting Steve back. Bucky is desperately glad that they already knew Steve had been transferred instead of disintegrated when they woke him up, he’s not sure how he would have handled it otherwise. He suspects they didn’t know either, and had only woken him up when they had that one bit of hope to give him.

Everyone is still hard at work, they’re now building the devices that will hopefully bring Steve back home. They seem to sleep only when they can’t stay awake anymore, pushing forward. Days passing is excruciating for everyone, and Bucky knows they all feel like there isn’t enough progress, most of all those who are actually doing the research.

They now know, from glimpses they’ve gotten through the barrier as they’re calibrating the method of breaching it, that Steve was definitely knocked into a parallel universe, to a planet like theirs. It has made them all a lot more hopeful about his continued survival, but they still aren’t sure they can pull him back.

Strange and Wanda are often found deep in conversation, both with each other and the rest of the team, since they also believe that her magic was what protected Steve enough to allow him to pass the barrier instead of him just absorbing the energy and disintegrating. It means they need her power to replicate the conditions and for bringing Steve back. The news had perked her up considerably, and Bucky is happy about it, happy that for her there is that ease of the guilt.

The rest of them try to not feel useless, and how well they handle it varies. It’s obvious to Bucky that Natasha hates being idle at least as much as he does. He knows she’s got it deeply ingrained in herself that she has to always be able to handle things, and now that there’s not much she can do, she’s feeling restless. She diverts the energy to keeping an eye on all their surveillance on HYDRA, and she, Bucky, Sam, and Clint have taken to sparring regularly. It’s taken a bit of adjusting, getting used to just one arm, but Bucky still feels all too powerful too often. Thor comes with them too, every once in a while, and it’s freeing for Bucky to spar with someone essentially invulnerable.

***

It’s been a couple of weeks since Steve’s disappearance when they all gather together to hear the plan for getting him back, because finally there is a concrete one. It unsurprisingly is something that in theory sounds simple but is hideously complicated under surface. They will create a portal, and for it to be stable long enough there needs to be a generator, something being built based on Jane’s design, on both sides. Which means someone will have to be sent through first.

There is a silence after that. They all know the risks involved, they know that whoever goes through will most likely make it there, but there is no guarantee of them being able to come back. Then there would be two people lost to another world.

Bucky can see it clear as day, many of them drawing breath, gathering the arguments inside their heads for why they should be allowed to go. It’s not going to happen like that though.

“I’ll go,” he says, and miraculously no one immediately disagrees. “I’m the one that has nothing to lose in this world.”

At the addition Bucky sees the final arguments die, and it’s true too. For all that he tried for two years to build a life for himself, it was never permanent, it doesn’t matter in the face of this choice. There is nothing that he would regret leaving behind if it turns out there’s no return, because all he really misses is already over on the other side of the barrier. If there’s no way back, Bucky would much rather be there with Steve.


	4. Chapter 4

As they come to Italy and start making their way toward north, Steve notices himself settling a bit. The shock of his circumstance is beginning to wear off, and he finds himself getting used to the idea of being in the new world. Not yet used to the idea of possibly never getting back, but just being there isn’t so odd anymore.

It helps that they’re off the boat and moving again; it means there’s a lot more for them all to do. They’ve found trucks and cars to help them forward, abandoning them if need be, going on foot when the terrain is tough. They’re making good time, Steve estimates it’s three weeks at the outside for them to reach the factory, depending on how they manage to avoid enemy forces. So far they’ve been lucky, but there is much ground to cover yet, and it’ll get tricky as they near the Alps and the border from before the war. They are all keeping vigilant, sleeping in shifts, even though he’s fairly sure Diana and Chief need even less sleep than he does, since they seem to be up at all times, and their little group is probably best guarded out of any Steve has ever been part of.

It’s all eerily familiar, they’ve even passed some areas Steve happened to visit during his war, and yet there is always something wrong, something a bit different. Just enough to make it disturbing to him. It would be easier to be somewhere he didn’t recognize at all, instead of this nearly but not exactly same Earth. He is grateful though, that he’s not running into people that he knows but doesn’t really, it would be too much to handle, he suspects.

It gets easier, though, as they go, same as everything else. So far he hasn’t let himself think too much that he might end up living here for the rest of his life, has clung to the belief that his team will find a way to bring him back. Still, he knows the probability of that happening is almost infinitely small, he doesn’t even know how they would begin finding him. He wonders if he really should start getting adjusted to the idea that he will end his days here, on this foreign Earth, that he will end up living through the decades he missed during his time in ice. On one hand, he knows he could, knows he’d be able to build yet another life.

At the same time, the idea of never going back, never seeing any of his friends again makes him feel sick the way he hasn’t since he got the serum. They’ve had trouble within their group, they’ve disagreed over serious matters, but he’s always believed they’ll be able to sort it out, that they’ll find a way to be a team again. He’s always believed someday he’ll be able to return home from his exile in Wakanda.

He’s also had the hope that Bucky would come out of stasis, and that they’d finally really see what they can be to each other without fear. He doesn’t really know if it would be possible, or if there’s too much history now between them, but he has hoped nonetheless. Now, even here on another world, Steve clings to that hope, because he can’t afford to let it go. He once believed Bucky was lost to him, and was proved wrong. He’ll never let it happen again, he’ll never again stop believing.

 

* * *

 

They move toward north, and it’s a world of contrasts, same as every other occupied country Diana’s seen. Sometimes it’s beautiful and peaceful, for all that it always feels like it’s too quiet, and other times there are stark reminders of the reality they live in, burned crops and villages, landscape scarred with bombs and trenches, people dead and gone.

It was easier, in a way, the first time Diana entered a battle field. There were all the horrors then too, almost too much to bear, but then she’d believed there was a way to end it, a comparably easy way. Not that she ever thought killing a god would be easy, but it was a concrete task, simple as a concept. Doable. Now she knows better, knows that the hearts of people are complicated, knows that there are so many shades of gray, so much potential for good and bad. It’s realistically impossible to stop all evil; as long as people have free will it will pop up. All she can do is to fight it wherever she can.

It was easier back during the first war to look at the horror, up until it wasn’t. It had been her first crisis of belief, an awakening. Now that she knows there’s no higher power to blame, that people are capable of horrible things just for themselves, she also needs to work harder to remind herself of the good they can do. It’s especially difficult like this, in the middle of the ravages of war.

But then, she’s not alone. There are her three companions by her side, tirelessly volunteering again their very lives for the right cause. There’s Etta on the boat, coordinating to make sure they have all the information they need and a way out after their task is done, protecting them all. There’s a soldier from another world who’s chosen to help with keeping this world safe even though it’s not his own. None of them are compelled by anything other than themselves to do this, but they’re still here, they still choose to strive for a better future, and it’s a reminder enough for Diana.

They are in the middle of horror, but a light shines in all of them.

***

They’re on foot again, passing an area where they don’t expect enemy activity, so while they keep vigilant, it’s just a bit more relaxed.

“You told me earlier that the world does and doesn’t get better,” Diana says to Steve that afternoon as they’re walking on. “Can you tell me just something about it, maybe not the major historical things, just things that are part of the daily lives of people.”

Steve thinks on it for a moment. “People are inventors by nature. We make discoveries, and some of them make life better, some of them make it worse. There are medications that mean illnesses that are now fatal are nothing more than a nuisance a few decades on. There are ways to communicate instantly to people all over the globe. That sort of things. People have been on the moon.”

“Really? Walked up there?”

“Yeah. That was outside of what you asked, since it obviously was a major historical thing, and why it happened is very much consequence of this war, but it did happen. There are all kinds of changes, but it’s not equal across the globe. I’ve told you earlier there is more tolerance for different kinds of people, more equality, more acceptance, but it’s not universal. There’s progress, but not enough, and there’s pushback too. And consequences. There’s all the technological advancement, but it puts stress on the nature, so much that it’s coming to hit us back. There are wars that end, and new ones that begin, even though they look different from what we’re used to.”

Steve falls quiet, and Diana thinks on it. His words paint a picture, one she can’t quite see yet, but suspects is something that will come true on her world too. She thinks they too will come up with both good and bad things, all with consequences.

“It sounds like a mess, sometimes. I once thought my future was clear, but those days are gone now.”

Steve shrugs. “It kind of is a mess, really. Looking at things individually, there is direction, for better or worse compared to now, but on the whole it’s hard to say. It’s taxing.”

“So how do you deal?” she asks, and Steve laughs a little.

“I don’t think I’ve come up with a lasting solution. It feels like I’ve drifted ever since I was woken from the ice.”

They’re silent for a while, climbing across a stream in a deep gully before Steve speaks again.

“Another friend of mine, Sam, asked me soon after we first met what made me happy. And I didn’t have an answer. He was prodding me into really finding it, finding my place and how to deal with things. Turns out I’ve ended up dragging him into my world, instead of me finding a steadier footing.”

“Or maybe he believes in the same things you fight for,” Diana suggests.

“He does, he knows how to make his choices. But I guess that’s it really, what he talked about with me then is the answer to your question. We have to find our happiness, even in the changing world.”

“I think so too, but it’s not so easy, always. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked, seeing as it’s so complicated. I think I’m falling into the same trap again,” Diana realizes.

“A trap?”

“Inside my own head. Back before, I built my hope on defeating Ares, thinking it would end the war, and now I’m again looking for a solution from outside, a certainty of a better future. There just isn’t one, we can only work for one and do the best we can.” She feels more certain again, coming back to the old truth. It really is as simple as that, even though it’s not always easy to accept.

“You’re probably right,” Steve says, and adds, all sincere, “I believe you will manage to stay on the right path, hard as it gets. You have the strength to keep going, to find the best in everything.”

 

* * *

 

Now that Bucky knows what they’re going to do, and that there’s a role for him to play in it, it gets even more difficult to wait. They have the working theory, a plan of action, but it’s only a plan, there’s still much they need to do to make it happen.

The scientists are building, testing, and scrapping prototypes, finding out what works and what doesn’t. It feels like one step forward, two steps back most days for Bucky, even though he knows it’s not a fair assessment. From the daily briefings he knows there is a steady progress, happening at frankly astonishing rate if compared to any other development process, but it’s still not fast enough.

The patience he has always had and that was honed to peak during his Winter Soldier years is hard to come by these days.

He’s not fully idle though, since he gets a new arm. It’s a sensible thing for them to arrange, they don’t know what exactly he’ll be thrown into when he passes through, and he needs to be in peak condition. The new arm is made of vibranium, and it’s powered by an arc reactor. Stark still hasn’t said a word to Bucky, hasn’t even properly looked at him, but this fact speaks volumes.

Assembly and attaching the arm only takes two days, since apparently Shuri had spent some idle moments on designing it during the months Bucky was asleep. Another day is spent in recovery, to make sure he’s healed enough before he starts using it. It helps that there are no major surgeries needed, since they attach it to the old base. Just three days spent and he’s got a fully working high tech prosthetic. It’s another miracle, and Bucky tries to not think it took too long, tries to not be ungrateful. Of course, when it’s all ready and he’s in full fighting condition again, nothing else is finished, and Bucky still needs to wait.

He and Natasha take up sparring again, and it’s good for more than just burning energy, it helps him to get used to the new arm. Now that he’s no longer working with a handicap, she goes at it much harder, and Bucky doesn’t hold back too much either anymore. They end up seriously bruised most of the time, and it’s probably not the healthiest way to deal with waiting, based on how Sam looks at them, but it works.

When he’s not sparring, Bucky observes the proceedings, and it occurs to him that Steve would be happy to see how his team has come back together in crisis, all of them pulling toward the same goal, new people coming in as well. Bucky knows that for all that they fought in Germany and then in Siberia, Steve kept believing that it was only a temporary break. Seems like he was right.

 

* * *

 

They get past the Alps and into the general area of their target factory with surprising ease. In fact, they get shot at a lot less than Steve did the last time when he was flown in by Howard.

It’s the first of November when they’re finally close enough to set up a camp and decide the schedule for the attack. They allow that afternoon for rest, since they’re safe and undetected, the next day will be for scouting, and they’ll go in early the following morning unless there are some unforeseen complications.

The whole ordeal has been surreal, being back and yet not, but this feels still too much of a coincidence. Or cosmic irony. Steve huffs out a laughter, and at the questioning looks he says, “It was the same day, November 3rd in 1943, that I went in the last time too, on my Earth.”

“Well, let’s hope we’re as successful as you were then,” Charlie says.

“Hopefully more. Hopefully this time we won’t end up not knowing something until it’s too late. But I’m sure we’ll manage this.”

“We will,” Diana says, sounding determined. “Only reason we fail is if they’ve taken it away, but then well just follow it.”

***

They go scouting the next day, to have a look at the factory and get the lay of land. Chief leads the way, Diana and Steve trailing after. They find a place on top of a ridge where they have enough cover, but can see the whole area.

“The building looks the same it did on my Earth,” Steve tells them. “But there are much less people around.”

“Makes sense. The reports Etta was able to pry from Allied intelligence suggested this place was getting phased out, that the production was moving to other factories. Better for us.” Diana says.

They finalize their plan, aiming to make sure there will be no calls for help that would alert the German command something is wrong and cause them to be pursued, and retire to get some rest, since they’ll be up and going just after midnight.

Sleep is hard to come by for Steve, even if he hasn’t really gotten enough recently. It doesn’t help that it’s still early. Back during his war he was able to fall asleep at any time, since they needed to rest whenever they could and sleep was always a short commodity, but Steve has long since fallen out of the habit.

All he can think of is how familiar all of it is despite the differences, that he’s again at the same place the same day. But despite the similarities it’s not a do-over, this time Steve will not find Bucky here, it’s not a chance to make things better. What has happened is set in stone, locked in time and he can’t change it. 

Still, his brain can’t stop bringing up everything he’d do the other way, everything he’d do better with the knowledge he now has. And for all the information he has, he still doesn’t know if the outcome would be any better. He’s just a human after all, for all that he’s been granted a miracle that allows him to keep fighting and living, and he can’t do anything else but move forward.

Steve makes himself concentrate on task at hand, on making this Earth safer, on helping his new friends in giving it the chance to make sure that Hitler doesn’t win here either.

 

* * *

 

They set out after midnight, all of them heading for their positions. It’s a combination of confidence and uncertainty that Diana feels as she waits. There’s the uncertainty on whether the Spear is actually there, but if it is, she has no doubts on whether they can complete the mission.

They are outnumbered, but she well knows in this case it won’t matter much at all. She also knows there are no certainties when one goes to battle, there’s always the chance that something goes wrong, that not everyone walks out. They all know it, and for all that some of them are much better protected than others, there are no guarantees for any of them. Still they all choose to go.

There is an explosion that takes out the radio antenna. It’s the signal for all of them, and Diana takes off running. Even when the factory is in the process of being decommissioned, there are still Germans inside, both soldiers and workers, all of them taking up arms against her. She’d hoped at least some of them would choose to surrender, but she guesses the place has been staffed with the more eager volunteers to make sure production runs efficiently.

There’s commotion all around her, coming from every direction as her group takes out the resistance. Soon enough things begin to ease up as the number of enemies standing diminishes. In less than half an hour there’s no one left, the factory finally quiet.

They regroup, all five of them walking, no major injuries on anyone, which is good enough. They find a corridor lined with smaller rooms that on Steve’s Earth were apparently laboratories of some kind. Here they are offices and storage rooms, there are finished products in crates waiting to be taken away. 

Diana finds the Spear in the third room, the process of it being packed into a crate interrupted. It seems they were just in time. The Spear doesn’t look like much, it’s a normal infantryman’s spear, the bronze head green with patina of time. Still, Diana immediately knows it’s what they’ve been looking for.

“Don’t touch it, its power can corrupt,” she warns the others.

“We should finish packing it, carry it away in the crate,” Chief says.

“And here’s something that’ll help us on the way,” Sameer says, picking up some papers from the table. “Clearance for passage, the person carrying this is to be aided in anything they need.”

“Convenient,” Charlie says as he and Steve start nailing the crate shut.

It’s good to have the Spear out of sight; Diana could feel its power when she was looking at it, a faint pressure at the back of her head. It’s a victory for them, the primary aim of the mission secured. They still need to get away, but that is entirely up to them. Diana has all the faith it’ll happen.

It’s a victory, but there’s hollowness to it too. For all that during the previous war she had to learn and accept that humans are complicated in nature, capable of good and evil, killing Ares had still had an effect on the outcome, had made the peace proceedings possible. This time they have a victory, and it’s an important victory, because it’ll mean Hitler won’t gain a power that would make him all the more difficult to defeat. Still, that’s all it does, the war is still being fought, and there’s no end in sight. There’s still no guarantee of an ultimate victory. Despite the fact that in Steve’s world the Allied won, it doesn’t mean the same will happen on her Earth.

Now her first priority is to get the Spear away from here, and after that she can consider her next step. Diana instructs them to rig the explosives to blow so that they can destroy the factory. It’ll make the Germans lose time, they will need to figure out whether it was some kind of an accident.

“Maybe we should just leave the Spear here, to be blown up,” Sameer says. “It sounds like the kind of thing that’s better destroyed.”

“It is,” Diana agrees. “And we will destroy it, but not here. I want to see it burn, I want to make sure it’s gone and that the Germans won’t dig this place up and find it again.”

 

* * *

 

Bucky is assembling his assault rifle after making sure it’s in perfect working order as Sam walks in. He doesn’t say anything, so Bucky goes back to tending to his weapons. He’s wearing a black armored suit, and he’s strapping his knives and guns on. The guns may end up being useless as soon as he runs out of ammunition, but they’re a start. He’ll find more weapons if he needs to.

Finally Sam says, “You find him, okay?”

There are a dozen ways to retort that Bucky can think of, but he goes with reassurance instead. “I’ll bring him back, don’t worry.”

Sam shakes his head. “No, what I meant is, we know that they’re pretty much sure they can send you there, but getting you both back, that’s less so. But whatever the case, find him. He had a hard time coming from ice, with everything different. Find him. Don’t make him go through all that alone again.”

Bucky gets it then, understands where Sam is coming from, and he could still be dismissive about it, because of course he’s going to find Steve, and he’s going to stay with him. That’s what he’s going there for. But considering he’s stayed away, really has run away from Steve for the last few years, he understands Sam’s concern, as irrational as it might be. After all, if he wanted to avoid Steve, he would have let someone else volunteer, but he’s finally in a place where avoiding Steve is the last thing he wants.

“I will, I promise.”

Sam nods, and then it’s time to go.

There are two devices that have been prepared; the modified gun they will use to send Bucky in, and the gate generator that they’ll use to connect the two dimensions to make a portal through which they can hopefully come back. Bucky is feeling a bit uneasy about the idea of letting them shoot at him with a big ray gun, but he tamps the hesitation down. 

As Bucky comes to the lab Shuri is working on the gun, talking to Wanda about the process, going through details the final time, since they will need to combine science and magic. Jane Foster comes and hands Bucky the vibranium case containing the gate generator. It’s made to be easy to carry, since they all know he may have to travel a lot while looking for Steve. There is some sort of sympathetic magic thing they intend to do that should drop Bucky somewhere near Steve, but it’s not exactly a guarantee. Right now they are confident they’ve got the dimension and planet right, which is enough for Bucky to work on.

They go through the process of activating the gate again with Jane. She has been the one teaching Bucky on the method, since for all that she tends to ramble and get flustered, she’s also very capable of explaining things in a way that avoids unnecessary scientific jargon but doesn’t underestimate him either. Bucky pulls the strap across his shoulder, the case settling comfortably against his hip, small enough to not be cumbersome while he moves. Jane has said that the new design for her guidance devices is much smaller, they used to be long sticks, but now they comfortably fit in hand.

Stark is the one to come to him next, and it’s a surprise to Bucky. Even more of a surprise is to see that he’s got the shield with him. Stark opens his mouth to say something, then seems to reconsider, and in the end just hands the shield and a harness for it to Bucky.

“It should work as a target for us to shoot at,” he just says.

It’s good thinking, they all know that while the energy will transfer, not destroy, it will likely still pack a punch. Something they’ve all been sure Bucky will be able to easily withstand with an armored suit, same as they believe Steve has, but he still might suffer injuries. It’ll be better to be in full fighting condition right after he’s through.

Bucky also knows, even with Stark not saying it, that there is a lot more to the gesture. They all know full well that it’s still not certain that they will come back, so now might be the only chance of getting the shield back to Steve.

Stark turns back even though he was already walking away, and says, “I know what they did to you.”

Nothing more, but again, Bucky can decipher the underlying message. The death of Howard and Maria Stark will always stay between them, but now this is an acknowledgment that Tony doesn’t hold him responsible. Bucky’s not sure what to do with it, and he’s frankly glad Stark nearly flees, clearly not interested talking about it either.

They’re all ready then. Everyone has gathered in the lab, the gun is ready, and Bucky is too. Natasha hands him the rifle she was holding while Bucky got the shield on.

“We’ll wait here, for as long as it takes.”

It’s a big promise, Bucky knows that it might with bad luck amount to years without them hearing from him. Still, it’s all they can do. He goes to the cleared out area by the wall, gathers the case with the gate generator into his arms for safekeeping, makes sure everything is securely strapped to him, and crouches down, his back toward the gun and everyone watching.

What comes to his mind is an execution, people being stood against a wall, but this for him is not an end, it’s the only beginning that matters for now.

“Whenever you’re ready, Wanda,” Shuri says.

“Good luck, Bucky,” Wanda calls out, and the sentiment is repeated from several mouths.

There’s a glow of red Bucky sees at the corner of his eye, and then a flash of blue.


	5. Chapter 5

Steve stands in the hallway, looking around. The rest of the group is still talking about how to proceed in the room where they found the Spear, but he’s not listening. The corridor looks just the same it did on his Earth, down to the lighting, enough that Steve almost expects to see Zola hurrying away, almost expects to hear Bucky’s voice. He shakes his head a bit, reminding himself once again that he’s in a whole different world.

It’s strange to be in the factory, back again but not really. So many things begun at its counterpart on his Earth, both good things and bad. It was where he found his team, where he truly became Captain America. The underground room in Brooklyn had been one of the many beginnings for him, but the factory had been the one that had changed the course for real.

He’d found Bucky there, still alive, even though he’d been told it was hopeless. The place had also been one of the many beginnings for the Winter Soldier. Steve doesn’t know what the ultimate birthplace for the Soldier had been, doesn’t know if Bucky even knows, but it doesn’t matter really. What’s past is past, and Steve again pushes away the persistent thoughts on how he should have done more, should have done better.

“You alright?” Diana asks, coming out of the room.

“It’s just strange,” Steve says, not wanting to say he’s fine, because he thinks that would definitely be a lie. “A lot of memories here. Are we ready to go?”

“Yes, we can take one of their trucks, with the papers it should be easy enough to get to the shore.”

Diana doesn’t get to finish, because there’s a flash of blue down the corridor. As they sprint toward it Steve tastes metal in the air, the same that lingered in his mouth after he’d been transferred here. The light came from the room he found Bucky in, he distantly registers, and some part of him already expects what he sees, and yet not.

He takes in the form clad in black, the metal arm he’s never seen cradling a metal case, long hair tied to the back of the head, the all too familiar shield still bearing the marks from the last battles he fought with it. There’s the now habitual fluid grace when Bucky turns and is already raising his assault rifle toward them.

Steve puts out his arm to signal Diana it’s okay. “Bucky?”

The word hasn’t even left his mouth before he sees recognition and relief in Bucky’s eyes as he drops the gun and lets it hang from its strap. Steve nearly stumbles forward, his head light, and he’s not sure at all he isn’t hallucinating, except when he reaches Bucky he’s solid under Steve’s hands, familiar in the way that Bucky always has been.

Steve has managed to hold steady all through the days and weeks since he came to this world, but now his legs want to let go, now his determination is overcome with relief. He closes his eyes, makes his knees lock and keep him standing as he tells himself it’s real, Bucky is here and whatever else it means he can deal with it.

He opens his eyes again as a warm hand cradles his cheek and his jaw, and Bucky’s bright eyes are right there in front of him, worried and relieved at the same time. He hasn’t slept, Steve thinks, recognizing the purplish shadows under Bucky’s eyes, as he takes hold of Bucky’s wrist, lets the touch on his face ground him, return him to a steadier place.

“Okay?” Bucky asks, so many layers in the simple question Steve remembers hearing all through their intertwined lives.

“Okay,” Steve says, but doesn’t move, just keeps looking at Bucky, awake again, there and real. It’s been too long since the last time. 

Bucky looks around then, and Steve knows exactly the moment he recognizes the place from how his brow furrows. “What the hell?”

“It’s November 3rd, 1943,” Steve says, because Bucky will understand the surrealism of the moment. How this time it’s Bucky who came to find him.

Ever since he came here Steve has felt like he’s been betrayed by all the parallels to his own history, but this is one he doesn’t mind. It feels like a gift, like another start to find Bucky again in this room. Only this is Bucky who has been through so much, more than anyone should be expected survive, but he has. Even more than that, Bucky has come through both stronger than ever, and still remembering himself, remembering them. And now he’s allowing himself truly show it, allows himself truly connect with Steve without barriers.

“Okay,” Bucky says again, apparently overwhelmed for a moment.

Steve shakes himself out of the shock. “We should get away from here, don’t want the Germans right on us.” He turns to tug Bucky toward the door, where the rest of the group are waiting, grinning, and Steve pushes away thoughts on how their reunion must have looked like.

“Who are your friends?” Bucky asks.

“I’ll introduce them as we go, we need to pick up something, but at least we won’t have to run away while this place is in the middle of exploding like the last time. And no Red Skull.”

“Well, that’s an improvement.”

“Yeah, we don’t have that,” Charlie chimes in. “We had Ares the God of War, but Diana here took care of him during the last war.”

They start down the corridor, and Bucky falls in step next to Steve, staring at him with round eyes. “What?”

“It’s a long story, I’ll tell you later.”

They’re still in the middle of enemy territory, but Steve is almost giddy with happiness and relief, much like he’d been on this same day on his own Earth.

 

* * *

 

As they hurry through the building toward the trucks they’d seen outside, Diana finds her attention being drawn to Bucky’s left arm that indeed is entirely made of metal. She knew of it from Steve’s stories, but up until now she couldn’t really picture how it would look like or function. She didn’t expect it to be as dexterous as a normal arm, stronger too as it appears.

As they talk about how to rig the building to explode, Bucky takes out something from his pocket, and tells them it’s a fuse able to be detonated remotely at the press of a button. They all shrug at it, decide it’s sometimes practical to have friends with future technology. In general Diana notes Bucky carries a veritable hoard of weapons, in addition to a suit that is much like Steve’s, although black instead of dark blue. Everything he’s got on him must weigh quite a bit, but he doesn’t appear to be at all hindered by it. As far as Diana can tell, he indeed is much like Steve, stronger than human beings in general.

Bucky had handed the shield from his back to Steve almost immediately, saying he had enough to carry as it was, and seeing how easily Steve handles it, she knows this is Steve’s own shield, the one he knows inside out, the one that had gotten too heavy.

They pile into one of the trucks with the Spear in its crate, Sameer and Charlie in the cockpit, the rest of them in the bed. At a safe distance away, Bucky presses the button, and the factory goes up in flames. Diana gets on the radio to contact Etta, and they agree on a place where to meet. The fishing boat has made it to the Adriatic Sea, and their captain knows a suitable cove on the eastern shore, which means they won’t have to cross any battle lines.

They settle in for a drive, resting for now but knowing they may have to be ready for action at moment’s notice. There’s plenty of space, but Steve and Bucky sit right next to each other, their shoulders brushing, knees knocking together. Diana’s fairly sure it all happens unconsciously. She and Chief are sitting a little bit away, giving them some space especially since it’s quite obvious they’re both still shaken from the reunion. They’re not trying to hide their conversation, and the practical matters are such that she too is happy to know about them.

“Since you’re here, does it mean there’s a way back?” Steve asks.

“Theoretically.” Bucky pats the case he’s been very careful about ever since arriving. “I’ve got something here that can be used to connect to our side, but we need to be somewhere safe to do it, it could take hours or even days to create the portal, and you can’t move it in the meantime.”

“What does theoretically mean?” Steve asks, grasping on the detail Diana too noticed.

“Everyone came together in Wakanda, and I mean literally everyone, Stark came and Thor brought Foster and some guy named Strange, I don’t think you know him. Anyway, Shuri managed to herd them around enough for them to figure out what happened, and since they already had the gun, modifying it a bit to send someone here was easy. They think the theory on creating a gate stable enough for us to get back through is solid, but there are a lot of questions still. Basically we’ll see if it works when we connect the devices.”

“So you just came here without knowing you’d get back?” Steve is understandably upset, his temper flaring.

Bucky’s reaction isn’t at all what Diana expects, because he smiles suddenly, bright and real. For a moment he looks almost like a different person, because so far he’s been fully serious, clearly weighed by the past.

“Do you really think I’d care?” Bucky says, and Steve’s anger falls away just as fast as it spiked.

There’s a change in their expressions then, a shift in their posture as they lean toward each other just a bit, and Diana has to look away, because there’s so much passing between them even when they don’t say a single word. She knows they’re both laying it all out in the open, they know each other well enough to be able to do so without having to talk about it, and she leaves them to it, peeking out through the canvas into the cold gray day. There are no dangers anywhere she can see.

Somewhat later she notes Steve focusing on the metal arm.

“So they made you a new one. Did they also, you know?” Steve gestures toward Bucky’s head, and Diana remembers the brainwashing Steve told her about, the reasons why Bucky had gone back to ice.

“No. There’s no progress on that,” Bucky says, a bit dejected, but Steve just squeezes at his arm.

“It’s okay, you’re fine.”

They settle back then, and some moments later Steve has fallen asleep, his head resting on Bucky’s shoulder. Diana’s sure he hasn’t slept enough since he came, even counting his needing less sleep than a normal person. Bucky stays awake, his eyes steady and serious, the big gun resting on his lap at the ready, but Diana can tell he’s content, even in peace right then.

She too settles back to rest, since everything is going forward without a hitch. There is a little glow of happiness inside her, because she knows it’s a miracle really that she’s witnessed today, even if it’s caused by determination of people. Then again, that will is a miracle for itself. It’s good to know that such happy things are possible in the middle of all the horror that the war has created.

 

* * *

 

Bucky sits on the bed of the truck, relying on the stillness he learned as the Winter Soldier, or maybe even before that, in the sniper nests during his time in the war. The same but different war that is apparently being fought here too. Steve’s head is resting on his shoulder, and he decides to not let it bother him that Diana and Chief see them like this, decides not to care what they think.

It occurs to him it should probably feel strange, maybe even uncomfortable, to have Steve in a continued physical contact like this. After all, he’s been avoiding touch for a long time now, even the idea has been undesirable. Now with Steve it doesn’t feel like that at all, it’s reassuring to feel Steve’s presence, to have the tangible reminder that they are together again, that the loss hadn’t been permanent.

Steve’s asleep, deep enough that the bumps on the road or the discussions around him don’t wake him. Bucky knows he’s crashing, he doesn’t need to have lived these weeks with Steve to know he’s been wound tight, has held himself together and not let himself break apart. Now that it’s not completely hopeless, now that there’s someone he knows from his own world with him, Steve has finally let go of the tight control, has allowed himself to relax. Bucky thinks it should maybe surprise him that he knows these sort of things about Steve so clearly, but it doesn’t. It feels like the most natural thing.

Bucky doesn’t feel like napping, even though he hasn’t slept well since he woke from the ice. He feels more awake now than maybe ever, hyper-conscious of Steve’s weight against his side, his steady breathing in and out. Bucky leans into the silent core inside himself, because otherwise he thinks his hands would shake on his gun, all because of the relief. He’d tried to not think that the world where he’d arrive through the portal might be strange and dangerous, had tried to not think of the possible difficulties in finding Steve, but he’d been very aware of all the variables. None of his imagined worst case scenarios had come true, Steve had been right there when he’d arrived instead, and they’ll know soon enough whether they’ll get back home. It won’t be many days before they should be somewhere safe enough to try and make contact.

Not that he cares too much, one way or another. It’s true what he said to the gathered Avengers, he still doesn’t have too many ties that bind him to his own world, the only one that’s strong enough to bear weight is with him now. During the weeks they scrambled to find a way to bring Steve back, he got to know the other Avengers and those adjacent enough that he knows there’s potential for him to create connections, but so far he’s kept his distance. 

He does care that Steve definitely has formed ties with his team, and thinks that losing everyone once in life should be enough. It’s mostly the reason he puts all hope he can muster on the theory on the gates being solid enough.

***

“This all goes very smoothly,” Bucky says as they ditch the truck and board the boat under the cover of convenient early morning mists.

“Did you want to hang by thread and prayer again? Because this suits me just fine.” Steve sends a grin at him over his shoulder as he’s helping Diana secure the crate that apparently carries a dangerous magical spear. Each world to its own.

“We need to find some place safe and out of the way to stay for a while,” Diana says to the woman who’d welcomed them on the boat, Etta, as she was introduced to Bucky. She too, as the whole group really, had been pretty much unfazed by his sudden presence, had just taken it in her stride. Bucky wonders what exactly all of these people have experienced, but then again, he already knows Diana could definitely hold her own against Thor and apparently killed the Greek god of war.

“We can go to Sardinia. It’s under Allied control, and there’s a place where we’ll be left alone,” Etta says.

“Great, thank you Etta.” Diana goes to talk to the captain, and Bucky settles by the railing, not quite comfortable enough to go inside.

He checks the case that carries the portal generator as is his habit by now. He’s not really worried, it’s made of vibranium and meant to withstand battering, which there hasn’t been any, since they made the escape without a hitch. Still, there’s no such thing as being too careful when it comes to their only chance of getting back. He’s feeling marginally more relaxed now that they’re out of enemy territory, but not completely, being on boat with several strangers, one of them at least strong enough to easily have an upper hand over him.

Steve comes to him after a few minutes, bringing food, as well as sturdy wool blankets, clearly aware of Bucky’s preference of staying outside.

“You should get some sleep,” Steve says after they’ve eaten.

“I’ve slept,” Bucky protests, especially since it’s only morning, but Steve just looks at him, clearly aware that Bucky’s only really had cat naps after arriving.

Steve tugs at his sleeve. “Come on, I’ll keep watch.”

Bucky looks at him for a moment longer, then decides he might as well, and since he’s also decided not to care what people think about them, he curls up on the deck with his head resting on Steve’s thigh. Steve doesn’t miss a beat, just pulls the blankets a bit more securely around them and rests his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, apparently not caring at all that it’s the one made of metal.

It should probably be odd, to be just known the way Steve sees right through him, but it isn’t, the same way that it’s not odd for him to know Steve, not the exact thoughts in his head but the shape of them. Bucky remembers it used to be like this between the two of them, but he feels like it shouldn’t be so familiar anymore. His handlers with HYDRA tried to know all of him but they didn’t, he kept a part of himself hidden for all that they tried to tear him apart under a magnifying glass. For Steve it all seems to be out in the open now, the way it wasn’t during the time from Bucharest to Wakanda.

Bucky drifts but doesn’t really sleep. Diana comes to sit next to Steve, and Bucky half listens to their discussion. They talk about the war, about what’s to come, and Steve mostly doesn’t talk about how it all happened on their Earth. It’s smart to Bucky, to not lock down anything, so that she’ll look at things without expectations as she goes forward. Or maybe as they go. Bucky knows that if they end up having to stay, they’ll be fighting the war all over again, Steve will not walk away and where Steve goes, Bucky does too. At least this time he’d be prepared for it, unlike the young man that set out from New York in 1943. 

As they talk, Bucky is almost amused to find that Steve and Diana are rather two peas in a pod, which explains why they have bonded so well over the past weeks. Diana’s group is an unlikely gathering, but Bucky sees the trust among them, the determination, and knows not to dismiss it.

Steve’s thigh under his head is warm even through the combat suit, and it really almost feels like he’s gone back in time, is on a mission with the Commandos, taking a rest when he can. He isn’t, of course, he isn’t the same man that walked the woods of Europe all those decades ago. Steve isn’t the same he was back then either, and while they still click together much as they always have, Bucky knows that too is changing.

It’s easier here in the different world, somehow, to really look at their history and how their lives have always been tied together. There’s clarity in it that Bucky finally allows for himself, clarity in what it really means to him that Steve is, and always will be, the most important person in his life. Now too, it’s easier to admit what he sees in Steve’s eyes when he looks at Bucky, easier to admit that it’s the same thing that resides in his heart.

 

* * *

 

They are dropped at a small cove on the Western shore of Sardinia. There are a few houses near the beach, looking abandoned, but when they go in they find that they’re solidly built and dry, with provisions laden in waiting. Apparently it’s supposed to be a discrete stopping spot for spies, which suits Steve just fine.

In a strange way he feels like he’s drifting, even days after Bucky’s appearance he’s still high on relief, because now he knows he’s not completely cut off from everything he ever knew. He still misses the rest of his friends, and he’s worried over the possibility that he might not be able to make it back, but to have Bucky with him means it’s all so much easier to bear.

He’d thought about it often, what their reunion would be like once Bucky awoke from the ice, and while the circumstance now is completely different from anything Steve ever could have expected, there are other surprises too. There is the openness between them, even when they haven’t talked or done anything about it, the potential between them is definitely mutually acknowledged. It’s different from how they’ve always known it, there’s no fear or pushback now, the knowledge sits comfortably between them.

It’s worlds away from how it was right before Bucky went into stasis in Wakanda. Back then they were both still drawing back, and Steve wonders if it’s the unlikeliness of the situation, the way this world is just a little bit different from their own that gives them the courage. He wonders if it will last when they get back to their own world. 

Steve doesn’t act on any of the potential, and neither does Bucky. There is the unspoken agreement that they’ll see first if they’ll get back, then they’ll figure out what to do with it. And Steve is determined that there will be something more than just potential, he’s tired of letting good things in his life go.

***

They burn the Spear at beach that night. Even though it’s late fall and rainy, there is enough dry firewood for them to make a proper pyre, and they put the spear on top of it, in its crate and all. None of them go to sleep, they stay up tending the fire, making sure it all burns away. In the morning there are only piles of ash left that they distribute around, making sure no part of the Spear is recognizable. The bronze has melted into sludge that’s mixed with sand, and the wood is completely gone. No more magical power left.

Diana stands on the beach looking up into the air where the last wisps of smoke are dissipating. Her gaze is serious, and Steve knows that she’s contemplating on the next step for herself, since this doesn’t really get them anywhere closer to actually ending the war.

Ever since he came Steve has tried to be careful of what he says about the course of history in his own world, not quite sure if it would disturb things here if he were to talk about it. He knows for a fact that not all things are the same, which means there are no guarantees the history follows down the same path. Still, there’s part of him that wants to talk about it, wants to make sure some of the horrors that took place in his world don’t happen here, or at least are combated earlier. There’s a part of him that feels like he should stay, should help and fight this war to its bitter end the way he didn’t the first time around.

They eat breakfast when the fire is gone and sun is rising, and when they’re done, Sameer asks, “Are you going to try to contact your world now?”

There’s no reason to keep delaying it, they have nothing else to do here, and yet Steve hesitates. He looks at Bucky, who just raises an eyebrow, because he knows, of course he knows how Steve feels, the conflict inside him. Bucky said to him long ago that he always tries to take responsibility over things that really aren’t his, and he suspects this really is one of those times. But Bucky doesn’t say anything now, just waits in a way that’s a clear declaration; whatever you decide.

Diana quirks her mouth at him, and Steve suddenly realizes that she too knows the reason for his hesitation, and it throws him. It shouldn’t really, he knows well enough that they are so similar, she would feel exactly the same in his place. She smiles then, brighter than he’s seen yet.

“Go home, you already fought this war. It is our turn now, and besides, you have duty to your own Earth.”

And it’s true; Steve does have a duty to his own home, to his friends there, and it’s not like there’s a lack of battles that need to be fought there. He nods, and Bucky picks up the case that’s never been away from his reach since he arrived.

“Unless it doesn’t work,” Charlie points out, sounding cheerful.

Steve can’t help but laugh, the tension he’s felt suddenly dissipating. “Guess we’ll see. But I have a lot of faith in the people that made it.

As per Bucky’s instruction, they clear a space in one of the rooms. When he opens the case, Steve sees there is a cube made of vibranium, about four inches to a side, nested in cushioning foam, as well as four smaller devices, each about the size and shape of a pocket watch. Bucky lays the cube on floor, touches the part that Steve recognizes as a control surface common in Wakandan tech, and it projects red lights on the floor in a shape of a square about three feet across. He places one of the smaller devices at each spot indicated by lights, and when the last one is in place, they light up the area inside green. Bucky taps the control surface again, and the lights turn blue.

“Now we wait, the calibration on their end for the gate will likely take hours, even days,” Bucky says. “Meanwhile don’t cross the lights, it’ll disrupt the signal.”

All in all it’s rather anticlimactic to have yet more waiting ahead of them, the results unknown. Steve sits down on his bedroll, and Bucky settles next to him. They don’t talk at first, just rest and listen to each other breathing.

 

* * *

 

The hours tick by as they wait for the portal to open. Diana doesn’t know what exactly she’s expecting, but then none of them do, not even Bucky. It’s strange, it feels like they’re hanging in between moments, not knowing when and what to expect. The blue light flickers occasionally, which Bucky says is a good thing, it means the machine is sending and receiving signals to and from the other side.

Etta, Chief, Sameer and Charlie have gone to sleep, but Diana, Steve, and Bucky are awake and waiting. She well knows the two men have no intention to sleep until there’s some sort of resolution, and she’s content to wait with them. They’re not talking, each of them drifting in their own thoughts.

Steve and Bucky are still in physical contact, much as they’ve been during every quiet moment since Bucky arrived. Diana thinks it’s not exactly their usual behavior, it’s more like the both of them have decided to let go of some of their reservations, at least for now. There’s no telling whether it will last when they get back to their own world.

Bucky seems relaxed, at ease for now unlike he is at most times, but there is a frown between Steve’s brows, a clear sign of worrying as he occasionally glances at Bucky. Diana doesn’t need to be a mind reader to guess what he’s thinking. She knows their story, knows that when Steve was thrown into her world Bucky was in stasis due to the mind control triggers in his head. She knows that even though they have yet to talk about it, there’s been a shift between them, they’ve now acknowledged the love between them. She knows Steve wonders if Bucky will go back into the ice again, despite everything that’s happened, and she thinks it’s not such an unreasonable worry. After all the reason why Bucky chose to go into ice is still there, there’s no change in that.

Diana sits there and thinks of the battles she has fought and won, as well as the battles she’s seen but hasn’t known how to fight. Since she left Themyscira there have been many hard lessons for her to learn, many occasions where the world has been more complex and incomprehensible that she ever expected on the island. The hardest lesson for her has been that there are some battles she can’t fight, some losses she can’t prevent.

There was that night that turned her life around, when she learned who she really is and all that it signifies. That night she also lost her Steve, since he chose to protect the world they knew from changing for the worse. It was a worthy sacrifice, but she knows it’ll never stop hurting on some level, she knows she’ll never stop wondering if there could have been another way. She suspects that for the people they were then, for the man he was, it was the only way. He made a choice, and she could only do her part, and that didn’t include saving him.

Now, as she lives on, there have been and will be other battles she can’t fight. The years marching relentlessly on is one of them, the way they slowly pile upon her friends and one day will take them away from her. It’s how it’s supposed to happen, there’s nothing she can do to change it. There are so many battles where all the strength of her arm can’t help, and the losses are so much harder to accept.

Sometimes there are still ways for her to help even when it doesn’t come to weapons, there are times when she can use the strength of her heart instead of hand, but she’s not omnipotent. There are depths she can’t reach, and she wonders if this is another. She would want to help, would want to take this worry off Steve and Bucky, but there’s nothing tangible for her to grasp. The mind of a person is complex, and now that other people have twisted Bucky’s mind into knots, she doesn’t know how to untangle them. By all likelihood this is another battle she can’t fight. It’s a harsh truth to face.

It is this thought, about facing the truth, that gives her the idea. Perhaps after all she can help, not directly, but can provide something that will allow Bucky to help himself.

She takes her Lasso, coiled as it usually is at her hip, and grasps it in her hands, feeling its power enveloping her. It can help her discover the truth in other people, but she knows that it can also help with centering on truth within herself if she needs it. And so it can do for others as well.

 

* * *

 

Bucky can’t tear his eyes away from the golden rope in Diana’s hands when she explains to him what it can do, that it can not only get truth out of other people, but that it can reach deep within and reveal the truths there for the person holding it. He gets her reasoning, because after all, that’s what the brainwashing and mind wipes were for, to hide his true feelings and reasons from him. The triggers prevent him from trying to reach for his own truth, only feeding him the lie that he wants to do as he’s told.

So perhaps, if he can really look into himself, to see what they did to him for real, maybe then he will be the only one in control. It sounds almost too easy, except he pushes that thought away as soon as it comes to him. He knows it won’t be easy, because really seeing himself without any barriers of comforting denial can never be. It isn’t for anyone, and probably even less for him.

But it is a possibility, and Bucky wants to take it, because it’s the first real chance presented for him to fully regain himself. He wants that to happen, for so many reasons. He wants to be sure of himself, wants to know no one else can decide how he’s going to live his life. It’s the one wish he’s had since he stood in the Smithsonian in DC, confronted by the facts of his past. And he doesn’t want to go back into ice, especially not now that it’s obvious both he and Steve have stopped pretending what it really means when they look at one another.

Steve’s hand even now is warm on his shoulder, offering support but nothing more, doesn’t demand that he try.

Diana sets the coil of rope on the small table by the wall and steps back. Bucky appreciates the gesture, him not having to take it from her, eliminating the risk that she would see something inside him.

Bucky glances at Steve, who nods and draws back just a little, staying close but not touching.

He draws in a deep breath. He’s not ready, not really, but then for something like this, he thinks no one ever is. He picks up the Lasso.

It’s not at all what he expected.

As his head began to heal itself after DC since he was no longer getting wiped, he had to get used to his memories coming back, sometimes in a trickle, sometimes in a flood. He expects to drown again, expects the Lasso’s power to dig through his memories, but it’s not what happens.

Instead he sees beyond them, he sees right into the significance and connections. He sees the man he used to be before the fall, the Winter Soldier, and the man he is now. He sees things about himself he knows are wrong and ugly, he sees things that are similar and yet not, because he didn’t choose them, and he also sees things that are right and good. It’s all there, all clear for him to look at. He knows now why he’s been hoarding some memories close to his heart, knows why he’s pushed some memories away, he knows why they’ve kept coming back regardless.

There are tangles that make no sense, and he realizes they’re the triggers, the words that wrap around some of his memories. They have worked as anchor points for the brainwashing, but now he sees how they twist the truth, how they make him into something he isn’t. He shakes them loose one by one, untangles the threads inside his head. He doesn’t know if it’s enough, can’t know until someone has read the words to him, but at least he now truly knows the lie behind them.

He finds new anchors for himself, things he’s been regaining since DC, and now he sees them solidifying, now he knows he can trust in them. There is the line between right and wrong, and the side he wants to stand on. There is his will to move on from what was done to him, to take back a life, even if it won’t be the one he had. There is the enjoyment in small everyday things, the fleeting irritations. There is his choice to fight back. There are the memories of the people and choices that made him who he is. There is the fact that he now dares to look into future.

And he knows he should dare more than just look.

Bucky opens his eyes, and Steve is there, with the usual frown of worry. Bucky knows better than to try and make another person his anchor, even someone as steadfast as Steve. Instead, Steve is there in his heart, one of the things that has made Bucky who he is, and one of the hopes for his future.

Bucky holds out the Lasso for Steve to take a hold of, and as is entirely typical for him, Steve plunges right in without hesitation. Their minds touch through the Lasso, and it’s then that Bucky is flooded, but this flood doesn’t mean drowning.

 

* * *

 

Looking at Bucky holding the Lasso, his eyes closed, concentration evident, Steve tries not to feel too hopeful. His heart had jumped at Diana’s suggestion, his mind racing toward all the possibilities that it would bring, and biggest of them all, Bucky wouldn’t have to go back into ice. It’s tantalizing, but Steve has had his hopes dashed so many times that he’s hesitant to now grasp it. But then, Diana wouldn’t have suggested this if she wasn’t confident, and maybe he should hope after all, he should believe in her, and in Bucky.

He doesn’t know how long it takes until Bucky opens his eyes, and there are so many things Steve sees in them, topmost the kind of peace Steve doesn’t really remember ever seeing in Bucky.

When Bucky holds out the Lasso for him too, Steve doesn’t hesitate to take a hold of it. It is called the Lasso of Truth, and there are all kinds of truths between them. Steve knows it will all be there for them to share, but there is one thing he most of all wants to offer.

It’s been near the surface ever since Bucky arrived, there but yet to be put in words, and Steve takes all the love he has for Bucky, everything it carries within, the hopes and the fears, the despair, the delight, and lets it all go. He’s met with love too, deep and powerful, wonderful and almost terrifying, spanning decades of time.

It’s difficult really to stand there looking at each other, everything open between them. They’ve always been close, always had each other’s backs, but they’ve been running too, they’ve shied away from this one truth of what they really mean to each other. To be confronted with it so fully now, even when they’ve let it in gradually over the last few days, to be confronted by everything else that comes with it, their past and their present, is overwhelming and taxing, but Steve doesn’t shy away from it, and neither does Bucky.

Steve knows, and through their connection sees that Bucky does too, that even though it’s all in the open now it doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy or simple going forward. The way they are sharing everything now doesn’t erase the pain they’ve been through, doesn’t simplify complex things, doesn’t absolve them of the guilt they choose to carry. It’ll all be there, and they’ll have to work through it.

Only now they will choose to work through it together.

It’s a joint conclusion they come to, and with it there’s yet another, because they know too that this understanding would have been hard to come by had things gone otherwise, and there are thanks they owe.

They turn toward Diana, shoulder to shoulder, and invite her to share too.

 

* * *

 

Diana watches as Bucky grapples with the inside of his head, and smiles when he offers the Lasso to Steve, who steps in to grasp a hold of it as well. Up until now, she’s been certain of the love between them, but not quite on whether they would choose to act on it, to walk the path of life together. Now that they share each other’s truths, she knows they’ll make it.

It surprises her to be called to share with them too, and she doesn’t hesitate, because it is a great show of trust that she wants to give back. She’s only known Steve for a few weeks, Bucky for a few days, and she well knows too that soon enough they might go back to their world and after they’ll never meet again.

She takes a hold of the Lasso, and for a moment their hearts touch. She feels the love that’s shared by the men, is enveloped in gratitude that they send for her. There is kinship between the three of them, a bond tied now that will last forever. 

Steve and Bucky let go then, the connection fading away, but the moment will always be a part of each of them, the perfect trust they had. Diana feels light as she settles on her seat again to wait, happy to have helped, happy to know that this isn’t a battle she will have to remember with regret. 

She knows she can’t win all the battles, but she is all the more confident that there is always something she can do. Something good.


	6. Chapter 6

As they wait for the portal to open Steve thinks back to the last few weeks, and how different his life is now compared to the moment when the blue light of the gun hit him. Back then he was tired to his soul, feeling like they were making no real progress, fighting HYDRA wherever they turned up but not making any visible dent to their operation, things appearing to have stalled where it came to the international policies over enhanced, and Bucky was still in ice.

Now, Steve knows that if they get back to their world, there will still be HYDRA, they will still be fugitives, but he thinks he now has a new shot of energy to deal with it all. Part of it is Bucky being here with him, up and awake and safe, but Steve knows the change begun before Bucky arrived.

He can now admit to himself that there was a part of him that was terrified the whole time since waking up in this world up until Bucky arrived. He was terrified that he’d lost everything again. It would have been easy to fall into the kind of apathy he did right after the Battle of New York, the way he’d tried not to after settling in Wakanda. Only the circumstance here didn’t make it easy, being dropped right in the middle of the war that he knows but also doesn’t. And furthermore, being brought into the group of Diana and the rest had woken something up in him, the old fire that demands action, that won’t let bad things happen if there’s something he can do about it.

It’s funny now to think that he’d almost lost it, for all that he’s been going against HYDRA this whole time. Only it’s become routine, the task has felt too insurmountable. Now he remembers that things have seemed like that before, and they’ve always made it through. It helps him to believe they’ll make it again. He thinks that if they make it back it’s time to change the strategy in their battle against HYDRA.

Steve feels immensely grateful for Diana, not only for the concrete ways she’s helped them, but also just for having met her, having seen the innate capability for belief in her. It’s obvious she has struggled over her beliefs every once in a while, but he also knows she won’t let go, he knows she’ll make it through the doubts and will be here for decades and centuries to come, protecting this world. He knows there’ll be hard times ahead, as there always are as time marches on, but he knows she’ll power through. Just being in her company has reminded Steve that he must too, that he must not give into the moments when he feels like he lacks direction.

***

It’s morning, the others drift into the room again, and all seven of them wait, conversing quietly.

There’s a low sound when the portal opens, one that Steve feels more than hears. There’s blue light glowing above the vibranium cube before it clears, and it’s as if there suddenly is a window without a frame hanging in the air. It’s not fully transparent at first, Steve can see shapes that he sort of recognizes as he steps closer, and the voices sound like they come from underwater. There is some frantic discussion, probably some recalibration, a moment when the portal goes red, unmistakably Wanda’s magic, and suddenly it’s clear.

Steve doesn’t know what to say at first. Bucky did tell him that everyone had come together to find a solution, but it hadn’t really connected in his head what it meant, not until now. Now he sees that they’re all there, all the Avengers, as well as many people he’s gotten to know in Wakanda too. All of them are clustered together to better see through, and they too seem overwhelmed, but just for a second.

Then sound explodes, everyone talking on top of each other, and Steve finds himself laughing, even though he knows it’s rather give or take whether it’s that or crying. It’s yet another relief. Steve hears Charlie and Sameer wonder about future and coming to decision they like it where they are. Next to him Diana is smiling, peering through the portal. It’s not her future, but she’ll live to see one this world has in store.

Shuri is doing something on what Steve thinks is the control device for the portal, and she says, “It’s stabilized now, anchors steady.”

“Right,” says the tiny woman Steve thinks is Jane Foster, he hasn’t actually met her before. “Bucky, disconnect the generator on your side. The portal should stay open, but if not, start it up again and we’ll reconnect. It won’t take a whole day this time.”

“Why?” Bucky asks.

“We’d like to get the portal generators back, they’re not good left lying around.”

“I agree,” Diana says. “We have enough things to trouble us as is.”

She smiles and Steve thinks everyone on the other side seems a bit flustered at it. It’s not at all unexpected reaction; while Diana can pass for a human, there’s still something about her that always draws attention. Even without knowing, at least the subconsciousness is aware of a presence of a goddess. 

Bucky fiddles with the cube, and the grid of blue light goes out, but the window stays open. Shuri does something, looks at her screen for a few more seconds and declares the portal stable to everyone’s relief.

“Do we just hand these over?” Bucky gestures at the parts of the portal generator.

Tony steps forward. “Don’t just stick your hand here, we better make sure it doesn’t fry everything going through.”

“Can that happen?” Steve asks.

“Well, it shouldn’t, and it’s based on the same energy that got you both there, but there are uncertainties about the prolonged connection we don’t know about.”

Steve well knows Tony would ramble longer, so he asks, “How do we test it?”

“Pass through something organic,” Shuri says.

“Right, hold on,” Bucky says and steps outside.

It’s the kind of awkward moment that sometimes happens as they wait, no one really talking. Steve can sense the tension in all of them. So far it’s all gone well, but he knows none of them will relax until they’re through.

Bucky comes back in with a branch from the tree that grows by the door, a few leftover fruit still hanging among the dark green leaves. Steve takes it and reaches with it through the portal, and lets Tony pull it to the other side. There’s a flurry of all kinds of tests going on around the branch, which strikes Steve as funny even though he doesn’t really know why.

Soon enough it’s declared that there was nothing wrong with the branch, so as far as they know it should be fine. Bucky shrugs and starts handing the parts of the portal generator to Jane, and Steve realizes this is it, they’re really going home.

Bucky takes the vibranium case he’s been carrying around, but pauses before passing it through. Instead he goes to Diana, and hands the case to her.

“There is a trick to the lock, you see.” His hands move on it, opening and locking the case as Diana’s eyes follows the movement. “There’s no need for a key, but no one who doesn’t know the trick will be able to open this. You’ll have many years ahead of you, and maybe you will need to keep something safe. This will help you with that.”

Bucky lets his hands fall off, leaving the case in Diana’s. He seems to want to say something more, reconsiders, and finally settles for a simple, “Thank you.”

Diana puts the case down, and hugs Bucky then, talking low just for him. Steve goes to say his goodbyes to the rest of the group. They’ve spent just a few weeks together, but the mission they went on together has bonded them tight, and Steve will never forget any of them, nor the kindness and support he received when he was lost.

Finally he comes to Diana, and really doesn’t know what to say. They are alike in many ways, although Steve knows well she’s steadier, more certain in the path she wants to walk on. He well knows it has been an honor to have got to know her.

Diana smiles at him. “I’m going to hug you really hard now.”

She does too, Steve feels his ribs creaking, and it’s not something he remembers happening in a while, but it feels good, solid. Steve hugs her back just as hard.

“Just follow your path,” Diana says, and of course she knows where he’s going, after all they shared their minds. It’s good to know she supports the idea.

“Good luck with all of this,” Steve says. “I know it seems awful right now, and it is, but I’m not too worried for this world. You can help them make it better.”

Then it’s time to finally go through. Steve has the shield on his back and Bucky is standing next to him. It’s another echo from the past, and yet not because now it feels like they’re going home, and Steve doesn’t ever remember feeling like that.

“You first,” Bucky says, gesturing toward the portal, and it’s familiar in that it sounds like a dare, but really is Bucky making sure he’s getting to safety first.

Steve grabs a hold of Bucky’s wrist, determined that he’s not letting go now, they’ll both go through. The portal is large enough that it’s not hard to get through with just a bit of ducking, and with just one step Steve is in an airy room in Wakanda where everyone waits, Bucky right there at the tow.

As soon as they’re both safely back, Wanda rushes in to hug him. Bucky told Steve about her feeling guilty for not managing to stop him from being sent away, and Steve hugs her back, reassuring her he’s none the worse for wear. Then everyone is there, greeting and hugging them, chattering all around. It’s a fully joyous moment, and Steve gets hugs from both his friends and people he’s never met before. Nat and Sam team up and do their best to crush him between them, and there is pure happiness bubbling inside Steve.

He finally comes to Tony, and there’s a second of pause before Tony says, “I can’t believe you handed me an olive branch from another world.”

“It’s good to see you, Tony.” Steve pulls him into a hug, and as it’s returned he knows they’ll be alright. He knows it may not be simple, they need to talk, they need to do better than they used to, but he knows they can do it.

Finally Shuri reminds them the portal is still open, and Steve goes back to the front of it again, Bucky next to him. On the other side Diana is surrounded by her friends. Steve musters up a smile, he knows it’s probably rather misted over but he doesn’t think they’ll care. 

“Thank you for all,” he says, and Diana nods at him.

They all wave, Shuri powers down the generator, and the window blinks out. There is only quiet after that.

“So who was she anyway?” Tony finally asks.

Steve thinks about it, about all the things he could say about Diana. About her strength and kindness, about how she’s a hero and a princess of Amazons. How she’s a literal, actual goddess. It’s all there, all true, and somehow it all feels inadequate.

“She’s Diana,” is what Steve finally settles on.

Bucky squeezes at his shoulder, the only other person now that understands it. It’s okay, though. Despite them being in different worlds, they will always be tied together.

“Please don’t start pining over a woman in another world, that would be bad even for you,” Sam says, and laughter suddenly bubbles out of Steve.

He can’t really stop it for a moment, just keeps laughing and leaning on his knees as Bucky fairly gently punches Sam on the shoulder. Sam grouses about it while Steve finds his composure.

“I think I’m doing just fine,” Steve says smiling at Bucky.

 

* * *

 

The window to Steve and Bucky’s world closes, and it’s just the five of them left. Diana knows they’ll never meet Steve and Bucky again, but this time the loss doesn’t feel bitter. And, if she really thinks about it, it’s technically not a loss at all. They were born into different worlds, never supposed to meet at all, so it was a gift. It was a gift with a time limitation, but she doesn’t care.

“We’re done, aren’t we?” Etta asks. “Ready to go home?”

“For now,” Diana says.

She knows she’s not going to stay put. She’s been working in London, helping with the war effort, but it really is time she takes more of an initiative. There’s a lot of planning ahead of her, deciding how she can be most useful.

She redistributes her things so that she can make use of the case Bucky left with her. The shaped padding that housed the devices that helped them connect to the other world comes off easily enough, leaving just a soft leather lining, and she puts in her most important possessions, including Steve’s watch. She never goes anywhere without it, and now it’ll be safer. The case is just the right size, light and durable, and sits nicely against her hip when she pulls the strap over her head.

It’s been enlightening to meet people whose experiences are both close to hers and not at all alike. During the weeks since she found Steve in France, Diana had a lot of discussions with him, during most quiet moments they had. They are similar and yet not, but their values and wishes closely align, and she’s gotten new perspective again for what she wants to do and to be.

She thinks now it’s an eternal learning process, living in this world. She knows that it’s not so simple as having decided once that she wants to help. It’s a decision that she’ll have to make time and time again. She saw it in Steve, saw his struggle with trying to endure every obstacle the world throws at him, how he has many times had to muster the strength to go on, to fight for what he believes in. And he has found it, because it’s the only thing he can do. It’s something Diana thinks can be seen both as a curse and a gift, whichever one chooses. It’s perhaps both for one person, just depending on the day. 

It’s something that drives her too, the need and will to act when she sees injustice and suffering, and she knows it will never change. It’s what’s right in her core, and it can’t be burned away with time.

 

* * *

 

After the chaos calms down a little everyone agrees they should probably get some sleep since they’ve all gone on short supply for weeks, although no one really makes a move to leave at first. Bucky extracts himself from the group and goes to the medical lab nearby where all his tests were done. When he gets back Steve’s eyes land immediately on the red book, and he steps away from everyone to come to Bucky, who hands the book out to him.

“You want me to—?”

Steve leaves the question open ended, but clearly he knows what Bucky is after.

“I need to be sure. And it’s not like I’ll trust anyone else to do it.”

Stark, being eternally curious as Bucky has learned over the past weeks, comes closer. “What’s this about?”

“I think the triggers are gone from my head, but I’m not taking any chances.” 

Bucky gestures at Steve to open the book. On second thought, Steve probably knows the sequence by heart, they did this before he went into ice here to provide the Wakandans a baseline to start figuring out how to get rid of the triggers. When he’d been woken up weeks earlier Bucky had asked about it, but then there had been nothing concrete yet. Even here Bucky had trusted only Steve to actually say the words to him, even though he knew he was safe, knew everyone wanted to help him. It was another level of vulnerability that he was loathe to submit under. Now, with any luck, would be the last time the words would mean anything to him. Hopefully now they would mean his freedom.

“You sure it’s safe?” Natasha asks. She and Sam have come to stand next to Steve, a silent show of support. “If they’re not completely gone, we don’t know how you’ll react.”

“That’s why Steve will do it, because I trust him enough that I’m not going to freak out even if I feel it working. And since I don’t want to fight him, it’s likely to be more efficient, so if there’s anything left we’ll know.”

Steve makes a face at the reasoning, Bucky well knows he hates all of this, all that HYDRA did to control Bucky, and to know that him saying the words will likely be more effective is probably a tough bit to swallow. Bucky wouldn’t ask this of Steve if there was another way, but he needs to be sure.

It feels like some bizarre show, since the Wakandans as well as the Avengers and their associates are all gathered to watch Steve reading the words, one after the other. It’s not easy for Bucky to stay still and just wait, both for the thread of expectation and the fact that he can still feel the triggers in his head. They’re not gone, not really, because to take them out completely would require removing many things Bucky doesn’t want to let go. They’re not gone, but they have no power over him either. When it’s all done, the last word echoing in the air, Bucky’s head is clear and his own, and when he smiles at Steve the answering grin is nearly blinding.

They all retreat to their rooms soon after. Bucky has his own suite, held reserved for him over the months he was in ice, and he’d slept there during the weeks he waited to see if they’d find a way to bring Steve home. Now he doesn’t go there, though, because Steve takes a hold of his wrist again and pulls him in after himself.

Steve’s rooms look much more lived in than Bucky’s, there are mission plans and notes strewn over tables, but also sketchbooks and pencils, Bucky is glad to note. He doesn’t take too much time looking around, just follows Steve into the bathroom.

They strip out of their combat suits and take a shower, helping to scrub each other clean. There’s nothing more to it for now, but even this easy closeness feels like it makes something in Bucky’s heart slot in place. They dress in soft night clothes and get into bed by the open window, arms around each other.

Steve falls asleep within a few minutes, his arms never going slack around Bucky who finds sleep slower to come. It’s a more gradual descent for him, slowly getting drowsier and drowsier, safe and comfortable and whole.

He idly thinks back to his small dream, of having a moment with Steve when everything would be simple, and how he’d already had one. Now, lying here, it’s again a moment like that, but even more, because this time Steve truly knows him, has truly seen inside him. This time they’re not trying to hide from anything, they’re not making compromises about what they can be to each other. Now, finally, the answer to that is everything.

Bucky knows not every moment going forward is going to be simple, but he also knows this one is far from being the last one of them.

 

* * *

 

Steve wakes up in Bucky’s arms, the two of them pressed together, heads resting on the same pillow, noses just a hair’s breadth from touching. Bucky’s already awake, his blue eyes steady and calm, and Steve relishes seeing it. He knows it’s not something that will last uninterrupted, he knows there are still issues Bucky will need to work through, but he hopes that the sense of peace is strong enough now that Bucky can find it, can come back to it. 

It’s still early in the morning, the sun is just rising and the early birds are chattering outside. Steve makes no move to get up, and Bucky seems just as content to stay there.

Ever since Bucky found him in Diana’s world, ever since it was clear they were really going all in and not hiding from how they feel about each other, Steve has expected for an awkward moment to happen. It seems like a foregone conclusion, that at some point the strangeness of shifting from being just friends to adding more into the mix should just come on top. It hasn’t happened yet, and now is not the time either, not even when Bucky shifts against Steve and it becomes impossible to ignore that they’re both hard.

It’s not an awkward moment, and Steve stops thinking about it, just moves even closer and presses his lips against Bucky’s. It’s a simple touch at first, but even then almost too much, since it’s the first time they’re kissing, and it feels like they should have kissed so many times before, the rightness of it is overwhelming. Then Bucky’s hand slides into Steve’s hair, holding him in place as he deepens the kiss. Steve gives himself into it fully, just grabs a hold of Bucky’s hip as they move against each other. It doesn’t take long at all before he’s coming, panting into Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky pushes even closer to him, shaking hard and then going completely slack and boneless.

***

After getting cleaned up they raid the kitchen for breakfast and return to Steve’s room, both of them wanting to enjoy just each other without questions and comments. They end up in bed again, this time just resting, still recovering from the taxing few weeks they’ve had. Bucky’s on his back leaning against a pile of pillows, and Steve is half on top of him, head resting on Bucky’s chest, the hand in his hair and heartbeat under his ear helping to convince him he’s really home.

For all that his head is full of Bucky, the idleness makes Steve’s thoughts turn to other matters as well, chief among them on how to move on from here. He knows there’s been a massive watershed now that all of the Avengers have come together again, and that they can continue with the momentum, even if they’ll have to be secretive about it due to the Accords.

“I think I’m going to ask Sam if he wants to take up the shield,” Steve says.

Bucky’s hands pause their movement on him. “You don’t want it?” he sounds only curious, not disapproving.

“No. When I have it, there are things that get connected to it, things about what Captain America should be even when it’s not what I want. So maybe there’s time for a new Captain America, and time for me to be something else.”

“Continuing like you have these last months?”

“Not exactly. I think I have, we all have kind of fallen into pattern, finding them and chasing after. I think we need to shake it up now, I’ve got some ideas, but I need to talk about it with others, to get their input.”

“Okay, I’ll be right there with you.”

Steve props himself up on his forearm to look at Bucky.

“Are you sure? I mean, you quite obviously wanted none of this up until the business with Zemo.”

Bucky smiles and tugs at the ends of Steve’s hair. “I’m sure. Obviously it didn’t work for me, and I’m not about to let you go in alone again, look at what mess you got yourself into this time.”

Steve wants to argue, wants to make Bucky understand that he shouldn’t just feel obligated to go when Steve does, but none of it comes out because Bucky just keeps looking at him, smile all patient. Steve gets it then, gets that for now, this is what Bucky chooses, so he should just let him. Bucky knows what he wants without Steve arguing about it.

“Whatever you want, Buck.”

Steve reaches up to kiss Bucky again, and it’s the end of that discussion.

There’s nothing tentative in their touch, still no awkwardness, and Steve is starting to think that maybe there won’t be, maybe they are just tied so tightly together that there never could be.

Steve has, from a very young age, been loathe to let himself be happy, be cause it felt like it would be all too easy to lose. Now he finally understands happiness is not about keeping it, it’s about accepting it when he has a chance. He does now, and he intends to grasp it with both hands.

Steve knows they’re past a crossroad again, on a completely new path, and this time he’s looking forward to where it leads, because now it’s not so difficult to believe there is a destination. Or maybe it’s not even that, maybe he finally finds the road so pleasant to walk again, the journey easier, that it doesn’t really matter where they end up, as long as they do their best to make the journey worth it.

 

* * *

 

Diana doesn’t rest after they get back to London. Instead she starts looking into the war effort, and really considering where she’ll be of most help. She knows she’ll need to get more hands on.

Steve had avoided getting into too many specifics about the war and its consequences, and Diana thinks it’s a good thing too. In this case, it would be akin to a prediction or a prophecy, inaccurate as they know their worlds and the powers at play aren’t exactly the same. And Diana knows, both from history of her people and her own experiences, a thing or two about leaning too much onto prophecies and predictions. It’s better to look at the world as it is and act accordingly.

Still, even from Steve’s silences she could tell that this war is maybe even more desperate effort than she’d guessed, and she’s known all the time it is something extremely ugly. There are rumors of atrocities her mind can’t comprehend, whispers of new weapons, not of legend but of science, more powerful than anything yet seen. She feels now even more keenly that this is a war that needs to be won, but even more, that it’s a war that needs to be ended before it escalates over a point where there’s no recovery. Truth be told, she’s not sure if they aren’t there already.

She knows even at a best possible case she has many dire months ahead of her, it’s not like when she entered the fray in late 1918, when many of the parties were already willing to end it. Now there’s no end in sight, and as she looks at the maps she makes herself remember those early days she spent away from Themyscira, what she’d learned then.

She remembers discussing the war with her Steve then, remembers how he’d seemed at loss about what life would be like after the war, because he’d lived in it for so long. It had swallowed him due to all the horror, so much so that he couldn’t even think of anything else, and he’d chosen, every step of the way, up until the last moment of his life, to try his best to end it so that other people wouldn’t be swallowed by it the same as he had.

Diana knows that she too will have to learn to withstand the despair, more than she already has, because as she gets closer, it will be more difficult to stand. But stand she must, and she will, so that the next generation will have a chance to grow without fear. It’s that hope that drives her forward.

She’s seen horror, and she knows there will be more ahead of her, in this war and the wars that will come after. She’s not deceiving herself by thinking that people would change so much suddenly that there will be no wars after the one they fight now. Maybe one day, but she thinks that is still a long way in the future. She’s seen horror, but she’s seen miracles too, and the ones that most give her strength are those performed by ordinary people. Because everyone that chooses to act in face of fear, in face of insurmountable odds, is another miracle, another proof that there is potential for better, another reason to fight on.

Diana vows to herself once again, as she has already done before, that she’ll do everything she can to protect this world, in peace and war, for as long as she can.

**Author's Note:**

> Diana, Steve, Bucky, and friends all head out toward new adventures.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, I've had fun with this, hope you've enjoyed too!
> 
> I’m also on [tumblr](http://stellahibernis.tumblr.com/post/163257437422/for-the-world-that-can-be).


End file.
